Plenary Lecture (in English)

Speaker: Jae DiBello Takeuchi, Ph.D
Title: L2-Japanese Speakers and the Sociolinguistics of Ehime Dialects

Jae DiBello Takeuchi (Ph.D) is Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University (USA). Dr. Takeuchi conducts research in Japanese sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language pedagogy. Her research focuses on the experiences of Japanese second language speakers who are long-term residents of Japan. She is particularly interested in how they navigate Japanese speech styles, such as dialects and keigo, which they encounter in local communities, workplaces, and leisure activities. At Indiana University, Dr. Takeuchi teaches courses in Japanese language and sociolinguistics. Dr. Takeuchi’s 2023 book Language Ideologies and L2 Speaker Legitimacy: Native Speaker Bias in Japan examines the experiences of L2-Japanese speakers living in Japan as a way better understand how native speaker bias impacts L2-speaker legitimacy. Recent projects focus on code-switching and linguistic microaggression and consider how speaker identity and markers such as accent impact L2 speakers’ acceptance in Japanese communities.
Dr. Takeuchi previously lived and worked in Ehime for 12 years.

Link to publication:　https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?K=9781800414648
Website: https://www.jaedibellotakeuchi.com/

Special Open Lecture (in Japanese)

Speaker: Takeshi Nishimura, D.Sc.
Title: From Crocodilian Growls to Primate Calls: Evolutionary Morphology Behind Language

Dr. Takeshi Nishimura is a Professor in the Graduate School of Human Sciences at the University of Osaka (Japan). His research focuses on the evolutionary process of human  speech/language and communication, drawing on insights from evolutionary biology, primatology, and phonetics to uncover the anatomical and physiological adaptations that underpin human vocal capabilities.
Dr. Nishimura has received several prestigious awards for his research, including the Takashima Award from the Primate Society of Japan (2004), the Ig Nobel Prize (2020, co-recipient), and the 2024 Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Award for Science and Technology (Research Division). His recent paper, Evolutionary Loss of Complexity in Human Vocal Anatomy as an Adaptation for Speech (Science, 2022), co-authored with an international team, explores how anatomical simplifications in the human vocal fold facilitated complicated speech, significantly advancing our understanding of the relationship between anatomy and language evolution.
At the University of Osaka, Dr. Nishimura teaches courses on biological anthropology and evolutionary science while mentoring students in interdisciplinary research. His current projects focus on cross-species comparisons of vocal anatomy and physiology with model experiments and computer simulations and their evolutionary trajectories to deepen our understanding of human speech.

Link to publication:　https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm1574
Lab website: https://bioanthro.hus.osaka-u.ac.jp/en