The meaning and functions of Japanese Demonstratives: From the process of establishing joint attention

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26884007
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Akita University
• Principal Investigator: HIRATA MIKI 秋田大学, 国際交流センター, 助教 (50734919)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 認知言語学 / 共同注意 / 直示 / 空間認知 / 指示詞

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research re-analyzed the result of the descriptive studies of Japanese demonstratives in the cognitive typological framework, which is mainly constructed by researchers from Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Psycholinguistics. It describes the semantics of Japanese demonstrative forms using the concept of 'attention'.
There are three significant points in this research. (i) This study showed that the status of the addressee's attention at the speech time has a crucial effect on the choice of demonstrative forms by using the Natural Discourse Data method, which was also used by MPI for Psycholinguistics. (ii) This research made it possible to do a contrastive study between the previous outcomes of Japanese demonstratives and the most recent findings on demonstratives in other languages. (iii) By using the concept of 'attention', it may be possible to do an interdisciplinary study of demonstratives, which take into account of knowledge obtained from cognitive science or neuroscience.

Free Research Field

言語学