Research Interests
My research explores the cognitive motivations and social functions underlying the dynamic transformation and expansion of conventionalized linguistic systems in actual communication. Drawing on cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics, my work examines how grammar and convention are continually reshaped through use.
1. Language Change, Linguistic Deviation, and Creativity: Motivations for Constructional Change
This line of research treats non-canonical and emergent expressions as the leading edge of language change. Using corpus-based methods, I investigate how perception verbs such as look, seem, and sound have historically expanded their complementation patterns, and how deviations such as beautifuller or the emergent the POV construction on social media are supported by metalinguistic awareness. A related strand reanalyzes the expletive it as a cognitive marker for construing constructional meaning as a whole. I also examine the multifunctionality of kawaii ("cute") in digital discourse, exploring how language categorizes experience and performs social action.
- Complement bias in the copulative perception verb construction (e.g., John looks happy)
- Complement expansion and its motivations in the talk about construction
- Motivations behind deviant comparative and superlative formation and use
2. Quotation: Dialogicality, Subjectification, and Technological Extension
Quotation represents a particularly salient site of linguistic creativity. Centering on the be like quotative construction, I analyze how the element of demonstration shapes linguistic form, and I document the novel quotative strategies that have emerged through digital media.
- Expansion of the be like construction in social media discourse
3. Naming Theory: Conceptualization and Contrastive Analysis
This strand examines how naming structures reveal cross-linguistic differences in conceptualization, with a focus on Japanese–English contrasts in the naming of dishes and culinary categories.
Selected projects:
- A contrastive onomasiological analysis of dish-naming conventions in Japanese and English
4. Forensic Linguistics and Trademark Law: Language Awareness at the Interface of Institution and Society
Applying theoretical insights to real-world institutional contexts, I investigate the linguistic processes by which trademarked proper nouns undergo genericization, the discursive construction of "neutrality" in news interview interactions, and divergences in communicative awareness within medical and nursing settings.
- A linguistic analysis of trademark genericization
