The 1st International Symposium on Japanese Studies at University of Macau was successfully held at the University of Macau on October 26-27, 2024. The symposium was hosted by the Department of Japanese, FAH, UM, with the aim of promoting international academic exchange in the field of Japanese studies. The theme of this symposium was Japanese linguistics and Japanese language education, with Japanese being the working language.
The keynote speakers for this symposium included three internationally renowned scholars: Professor Kaoru Horie, who is Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University, Japan and currently teaching at Kansai Gaidai University, Japan, Professor Heiko Narrog from Tohoku University, Japan and Professor Kei Ishiguro from the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Japan. Professor Horie’s presentation focused on the continuity between main and subordinate clauses, exploring the bidirectional evolution between main and subordinate clauses in Japanese and other languages, and analyzing the underlying motivations. Professor Narrog’s talk concentrated on the Focus Concord Construction in Old Japanese, and systematically summarized eight research perspectives on this construction while offering his own insights. This talk deepened the understanding of the Focus Concord Construction in the theory of grammaticalization. Professor Ishiguro utilized the data retrieved from the Longitudinal Corpora of Japanese Language Learners, and analyzed the use of Japanese filler words by Chinese undergraduate students at different stages, providing new empirical evidence for second language acquisition and Japanese language education.
In the subsequent panel presentations, scholars from China and Japan reported their research findings on topics such as Japanese morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and Japanese language education. Research perspectives included cognitive linguistics, generative grammar, and grammaticalization, with methods primarily focusing on quantitative, comparative and corpus-based empirical research. Participants engaged in lively discussions following each presentation.
This symposium is the first international event held after the restructuring of the Centre for Japanese Studies into the Department of Japanese in April of this year. It has provided rich theoretical perspectives and empirical research methods for the in-depth exploration in the field of Japanese studies and laid a solid foundation for future academic collaborations. The Department of Japanese will continue to host international symposiums on various themes, aiming to further promote exchanges and cooperation between UM scholars and both domestic and international academic communities.
