I would welcome enquiries from prospective students interested in conducting research on topics related to my general research interests. In particular, I am keen to supervise research in the following areas:
Sociolinguistics
Language variation and change (regional, social, ethnic, historical).
The linguistic consequences of mobility and contact in such settings as postcolonial, migrant/immigrant and expat communities, international schools and new towns:
Language contact (language maintenance and shift, contact-induced borrowing, code-switching, translanguaging, nativisation, formation of contact varieties, ethnolect formation, language obsolescence, acquisition, retention and attrition of second or heritage language);
Dialect contact (speech accommodation, dialect diffusion, second dialect acquisition, koineisation, new dialect formation and dialect obsolescence).
Language variation in the speech of people ‘on the move’: the effects of travelling back and forth on variation: such as Japan-born children of Nikkei immigrants from Central/South America.
Language development of bilingual children (e.g., returnee children of former expat families, children of international marriages, children attending international (pre-)schools); family language policy; creativity of bilingual language users.
Sociology of language.
Annual seminar under cherry blossoms in full bloom
With David Britain and students of Bern and Tokyo Universities at NWAV-AP4
With Sue Fox, David Fox, Heinrich Ramisch, Dimitris Papazachariou and students of Tokyo Univ during Methods in Dialectology XVI.
Recently completed and on-going BA, MA and PhD research projects under my (co-)supervision include:
Variation of the Japanese velar consonant: A sociolinguistic study of a new town in Sendai.
An experiment on variation in use and evaluation of Tokyo dialect: Reactions to evaluations made by non-Tokyo dialect speakers.
Farmers’ cannot get wives: Language use by foreign wives in an agricultural village in Niigata Prefecture.
English literacy retention in Japanese returnee siblings.
Language retention and attrition among young Japanese returnees: A study based on the oral in English used in the language retention programme.
Gender differences in code-switching among Japanese returnee students in higher education in Tokyo.
Inbound tourism and the linguistic landscape: Effects of Aussie and Kiwi ski tourism in Hakuba, Japan.
A sociolinguistic study of language use at a Taiwanese school in Japan.
Language variation and shift in the overseas Chinese community with a focus on Yokohama Chinatown.
A sociolinguistic investigation of the Brazilian community in Ibaraki, Japan.
A new Korean variety?: A sociolinguistic investigation of North Korean pupils in Tokyo.
A comparative sociolinguistic perspective on bilingualism in Korean residents in Japan: Students attending Korean ethnic schools and Japanese schools.
Language and identity among Nikkei descendants on the move: Observations in Japan and Peru.
Language maintenance and shift in the Japanese community in Mexico City.
A sociolinguistic study of a variety of Japanese spoken in Mexico: Japanese dialect contact and transfer from Mexican Spanish.
Codeswitching in storytelling among Japanese-English bilingual children in Hawai’i.
The development of and diversity in the nativised variety of English on Guam.
The paradox of World Englishes: Liberation from “English” and domination by “Englishes”.
A sociolinguistic investigation of language use, language attitude and identity in Savoy, France.
Relativisers in Shakespeare’s drama: From a historical sociolinguistic perspective.
COURSES TAUGHT
Language and Society (undergraduate)
Sociolinguistics (postgraduate)
Language Variation and Change (undergraduate and postgraduate)
Sociolinguistic Research Methods (undergraduate and postgraduate)
