East Asian Humanities Workshop & East Asian Linguistics Workshop: "(In)determinacy of silent reference in Japanese and its implications," Yoshiko Matsumoto

Abstract:

Japanese utterances often lack explicit forms that refer to the participants/elements of a described event or state, including the main figures such as the actors and undergoers. While some silent referents are construable from the (non-)linguistic contexts, others are not determinable with specificity. Yet, speakers of Japanese seem to carry out successful interaction.  This talk explores an interactionally-oriented explanation for such successful interaction drawing from semantic and pragmatic accounts. The explanation also suggests a stance that may promote a smoother interaction with English speakers living with cognitive impairments whose language is often described as presenting “referential cohesion errors”. 

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Yoshiko Matsumoto has been interested in structures and uses of language as part of human experience. Her projects and publications investigate aspects of linguistic pragmatics, from structural to sociocultural, with cross-linguistic perspectives. Building on her earlier book Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese: A Frame Semantic Approach, she co-edited Noun-Modifying Clause Constructions in Languages of Eurasia: Rethinking Theoretical and Geographical Boundaries (2017). The publications on one of her research topics, the intersection of age, cognitive conditions and language, include Faces of Aging: The Lived Experiences of the Elderly in Japan (2011) and “Pragmatics of understanding: Centrality of the local—Cases from Japanese discourse and Alzheimer’s Interaction” (2020). She is professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures (and by courtesy, Linguistics) and the Yamato Ichihashi Professor in Japanese History and Civilization.