Sociolinguistic Research on the Discourses of Multicultural Workplaces in Japan: Understanding the Linguistic Behaviour and Overcoming Communicative Issues in Cross-cultural Interaction Among Workers

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00751
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02090:Japanese language education-related
• Research Institution: Kansai University
• Principal Investigator: Barke Andrew 関西大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (90615741)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 嶋津 百代 関西大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (90756868) ; 村田 和代 龍谷大学, 政策学部, 教授 (50340500)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: multi-cultural workplace / communication

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aims of this project were to: 1) examine how workers from different cultural backgrounds interact in Japanese workplaces; 2) reveal problems that can occur during such interactions; and 3) provide practical solutions to aid workers in overcoming such problems.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic made progress on the project difficult, which forced some changes to the original research plan. For example, instead of offering direct solutions to communication problems found in the workplace, it was decided to analyse discourse from a variety of workplace contexts that would enhance employees' understanding of the nature of workplace interactions and help resolve any communication problems that may arise.

Free Research Field

sociolinguistics, pragmatics

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

This research addressed a gap in research on communication in multicultural workplaces in Japan. A corpus of Japanese discourse from 10 workplaces was created, results were presented at conferences and published in books and journals, and will be available on a website for access by the public.