Words that Seem to Denote “Places” in English and Japanese: English Prepositions and Japanese Postpositions

This paper deals with the English and Japanese words / morphologies that seem to denote static spatial positions. After analyzing what the central meanings for each linguistic item are, we will see that English prepositions and Japanese postpositions correspond “homologously” to what Ikegami (1981) argues as “do-language” and “become-language” respectivelyArticle2016 Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education PROCEEDINGS.2016:(2016)conference pape

A Pragmatic Strategy for Building Accordance in Discordant Situations : A Case Study on Negative Questions

“Discordance” between what we expect and what actually happens is one of the biggest conflicts we experience in our daily lives. This paper will argue that conveying to others that there is such discordance is one of the main reasons interlocutors use negative questions in uttering a request.Article2015 Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education PROCEEDINGS.2015:(2016)conference pape

Teaching English to Japanese EFL Learners Using Phonetics : A Pedagogical Application of the Vowel Triangle

English Teaching in Japan is facing a reformation and changing its “Government Course Guideline”. In the new Guideline, teaching communicative English is one of the biggest goals and teaching pronunciation is a hot topic on the agenda. This paper tries to show the effectiveness of using the knowledge of phonetics, more specifically, the knowledge of Vowel Triangle, in teaching pronunciation to Japanese elementary students, especially focusing on the [æ] sound, which is one of the most difficult sounds for Japanese to produce, and aims to contribute to the better English pedagogy.Article2017 Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education PROCEEDINGS.2017:(2017)conference pape

A Step toward the Improvement of English Teaching : A Semantic Approach to -Ment and -Tion

現在の英語教育では、単語の意昧を覚えることの重要性は強調されている一方、より小さな単位である接辞についてはあまり触れられない。しかも、多義語においても、それらを意味の羅列として教える。しかしながら、接辞の意味そしてそれらの意味の体系を教えることは、学習者の語彙習得に大きく貢献できることは間違いない。実際、今回行った実験でも接尾辞についての言語学的説明を与えるほど単語テストの点数が上がった。本論文では、実験の概要から始まり、次にどのような言語学的説明を与えることで、学習者の接尾辞学習が進んだかを説明する。具体的にはまず接尾辞付与の条件が意味にあることを証明した後、認知言語学的手法を用いて接尾辞-mentと-tionの中心義、棲み分けを明らかにする。さらに心理動詞と形容詞を取り上げ、なぜそれらの多くは-tionではなく-mentが付くのかを説明し、そこにも動詞で見たような-mentと-tionの意味的な違いが関連していることを示す。Article信州大学高等教育システムセンター紀要 2: 129-146(2006)departmental bulletin pape

The Peer Review Project : A Class in English Composition and a Class in Linguistics Taught in English

Article信州大学教育システム研究開発センター紀要 9: 97-104(2003)departmental bulletin pape

Multidirectional Approach to the Semantics of Have:Seeking a Unified Way of Teaching Its Polysemy to the EFL Students

Have is one of the most polysemous words. This workshop will discuss the semantics of have through three presentations and a discussion forum. The presentations will focus (i) on have in the causative constructions, (ii) on the “habitat segregation” of idioms using have, and (iii) on some constructions denoting location including constructions with have. In the discussion forum, we will discuss on the semantics of have and present an effective way of teaching the word to the EFL students.Article2015 Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education PROCEEDINGS.2015:(2016)conference pape

Teaching Prepositions to Japanese EFL College Students : Bridging Theory and Practice

Although universities in Japan have begun emphasizing on the importance of English education in producing globally-competitive human resources, in reality, the English proficiency level of the Japanese college students has deteriorated. Judging from the current situation, the Japanese college students need to take more English classes to improve their English proficiency level. However, they found it difficult to learn English in the classroom more than what they already have due to time constraint. This paper introduces modular-style teaching materials that are offered at our university in the e-learning system called e-Alps, which utilizes Moodle. E-Alps is a platform that enables the students to learn English on their own, outside classroom, to overcome the problem of limited English learning class hours. The English materials are available on e-Alps for students to download freely. This paper is twofold. Firstly, it discusses the semantics of the English preposition to and secondly proposes a modular-style material concerning to and will prove our material to be advantageous for the Japanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students.ArticleInternational Journal of Language Education and Applied Linguistics (IJLEAL). 3:1-10(2015)journal articl