Yoshiko Matsumoto

Associate Professor
Coordinator of the Japanese Language Program

Contact Information:

Building 250, Room 203
(650) 723-0526
yoshikom@stanford.edu

Office Hours:

by appointment only

Research

Interests:

Various semantic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of phenomena in Japanese including pragmatics of complex noun phrases, reference, honorifics, politeness theories, speech acts, bilingualism, and the relation among language, gender and age. Questions of ideology and identity reflected in teaching and learning Japanese as a second language are another interest.

Teaching

Current Courses:


Language and Gender in Japan: Myths and Reality	Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Ideology and practice of gender in the Japanese society as reflected in and created by stylistic choices in the Japanese language. Past and present speech styles of women and men, speech situations, age, class, identities of the individual speakers and their relationships with others. How belief and reality are refracted through mass media and fictional representations. Comparisons with similar phenomena in other cultures.	Spr
Academic Readings in Japanese	Strategies for reading academic writings in Japanese. Readings of scholarly papers and advanced materials in Japanese in students’ research areas in the humanities and social sciences. Prerequisites: JAPANLNG 103, 129B, or equivalent; and consent of instructor. 235: Win, 236: Spr (Matsumoto, Y)	Win
Japanese Pragmatics	Sociocultural and discourse factors reflected in the choice of linguistic forms, and their theoretical implications. Prerequisites: one year of Japanese and a course in linguistics, or two years of Japanese, or consent of instructor.	Win

Language and Gender in Japan: Myths and Reality

Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Ideology and practice of gender in the Japanese society as reflected in and created by stylistic choices in the Japanese language. Past and present speech styles of women and men, speech situations, age, class, identities of the individual speakers and their relationships with others. How belief and reality are refracted through mass media and fictional representations. Comparisons with similar phenomena in other cultures.

Spr

Academic Readings in Japanese

Strategies for reading academic writings in Japanese. Readings of scholarly papers and advanced materials in Japanese in students’ research areas in the humanities and social sciences. Prerequisites: JAPANLNG 103, 129B, or equivalent; and consent of instructor.

235: Win, 236: Spr (Matsumoto, Y)

Win

Japanese Pragmatics

Sociocultural and discourse factors reflected in the choice of linguistic forms, and their theoretical implications. Prerequisites: one year of Japanese and a course in linguistics, or two years of Japanese, or consent of instructor.

Win

Selected Publications:

Title	Year
Diversity and Universals in Language: Perspectives & Implications	2007
Dealing with changes: Discourse of elderly Japanese women	2007
Integrating frames: Complex noun phrase constructions in Japanese	2007
‘We’ll be dead by then!’ – comical self-disclosure by elderly Japanese women’	2005
Alternative Femininity and the Presentation of Self in Japanese	2004
The new (and improved?) language and place of women in Japan	2004
Kizuki to sentaku: Shakai-gengogakuteki nooryoku no yoosei o mezasu nihongo-kyooiku no igi	2004
The Construction of the Japanese Language and Culture in Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language	2003
Reply to Pizziconi	2003
Gender Identity and the Presentation of Self in Japanese	2002
Extending Frame Semantics: Flexibility of Complex Noun Phrase Constructions in Japanese	2001
Tyotto: Speech act qualification in Japanese	2001
Japanese stylistic choices and ideologies across generations	1999
Sedai to kotoba no sentaku	1999
Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese: A Frame Semantic Approach	1997

Department of Asian Languages

Yoshiko Matsumoto