Yoshiyuki Asahi: Old and new trends in Japanese dialect research

Yoshiyuki Asahi is an associate professor of sociolinguistics at National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. In his talk, he will introduce Japanese dialects from both traditional and innovative perspectives. Despite the large impact standard Japanese has had on the dialects, dialects still do exist and seem to be assuming a new role in the contemporary Japanese society. The talk will include introduction of (1) traditional findings in Japanese dialectology such as its classification and the diversity in all linguistic levels and (2) current findings from the use of Japanese dialects in new media such as LINE text messages, Twitter, YouTube as well as in Japanese anime.