Koji Miwa

Miki Ikuta   (Doctoral program, Humanities) 

April, 2020 - In progress

日本学術振興会　特別研究員(DC2)

Researchgate: researchgate.net/profile/Miki_Ikuta

Personal website

https://ikutamiki.wordpress.com/

Research project

Metaphor comprehension processing in L1 and L2 

Keywords

Metaphor・Figurative Language・Psycholinguistics

Message

"Babies are angels" means a lot more than "Babies are cute". The use of metaphor enriches our imagination and helps us understand abstract features.Thus, metaphors are used not only for jokes and humor in literature, but also for  summarizing, exemplifying, describing and clarifying in academic contexts. My academic goal is to discover how metaphors are understood in L1 and L2. If you are interested in this topic  (and our lab also), don't hesitate to let me know.

Jiashen Qu   (Doctoral program, Humanities)

October, 2020 - In progress

Researchgate: researchgate.net/profile/Jiashen_Qu

Twitter: twitter.com/JackyQU4

Personal website

https://jiashen-qu.jimdosite.com

Research project

Conceptualisation of Event Roles in Japanese-English Bilinguals

Keywords

Event Representations, Bilinguals

Message

I am mesmerised by linguistic relativity which studies how language influences thought and world view of its speakers. The research on this topic has been century-old and many studies have found the robust evidence of language effects on thoughts. It becomes more interesting when we approach this issue from the perspective of bilinguals. Does learning a new language change the way we think? If it does, to what extent and in what domains does it happen? I take an experimental approach to these questions. If you find this research topic fascinating as well, please feel free to contact me. 

Mehrnaz (Mary) Piroozi  (Research student, Humanities)

April, 2023 - In progress

Researchgate: researchgate.net/profile/Mehrnaz-Piroozi

Personal website

TBA

Research project

TBA

Keywords

Language Processing, Mental Lexicon, Word Recognition

Message

The processing of language in the brain is a very interesting phenomenon. It seems like the human brain is a supercomputer that is able to store and process an infinite amount of linguistic information in a few milliseconds, and it becomes even more fascinating if one can speak more than one language. As a speaker of 4 languages (Japanese, English, Persian, and Turkish), I am interested in understanding how this phenomenon takes place in the brain, and finding out if there is a special structure in the brain to accommodate for all these languages.