Kyushu University Academic Staff Educational and Research Activities Database
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Takahiro Otsu Last modified date:2023.10.20



Graduate School
地球社会統合科学府言語・メディア・コミュニケーション専攻
Administration Post
Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures


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Homepage
https://kyushu-u.elsevierpure.com/en/persons/takahiro-otsu
 Reseacher Profiling Tool Kyushu University Pure
http://www.flc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~otsu/index.html
This homepage includes my academic background , research achievements, teaching method, and others .
Academic Degree
Master of Arts
Country of degree conferring institution (Overseas)
No
Field of Specialization
Cognitive Pragmatics, Relevance Theory
Total Priod of education and research career in the foreign country
03years00months
Outline Activities
Research:
(1) My research is mainly based on Relevance Theory, a cognitive theory which tries to account for linguistic phenomena, whether English or Japanese, in a cognitively sound way. This theory can be applied into the accounts of anaphors or discourse connectives in English, and the actual communication data in Japanese in order to investigate how the presumption of optimal relevance is achieved. (2) Another research is made by linguistic psychological experiments whose purpose is to investigate the cognitive process through which Japanese learners of English construct a meaning when they translate English into Japanese.

Education:
My teaching method aims to improve: (1) the students' accurate, critical, and fast reading skill through reading the TIME articles; (2) their communicative skill by writing a 400-word English essay of their own and making an oral presentation of it; and (3) their practical skill by taking tests such as TOEIC during the class.

Social Activities:
(1) summer intensive lectures in the University of the Air in Fukuoka (whose titles are "An Introduction to English Grammar and Writing (1999), "From and Meaning of English: From the Viewpoint of Vocaburaly, Construction and Communication" (2001) "An Outline of Utterance Interpretation" (2003), and "Rules on Comunication" (2004))
(2) examiner of the STEP test
Research
Research Interests
  • A Metarepresentational Analysis of the Anaphoric Processes of Understanding Anaphoric Expressions: From a Linguistic Theory and the Theory of MInd
    keyword : anaphora, relevance theory, metarepresentation, interpretive resemblance, procedural meaning
    1999.04~2012.03A cognitive and relevance-theoretic account of anaporic expression with regard to the distinction between surface and deep anaphora.
  • Pragmatic inference involved in utterance interpretation
    keyword : relevance, pragmatic inference, cognitive effect, processing effort
    1998.04~2011.03Relevance Theory and Utterance Interpretation.
  • The pragmacognitive analysis of Japanese and English discourse markers and fillers
    keyword : discourse marker, filler, concept, procedure, relevance theory
    1987.04~2017.03The transition of the theory of utterance interpretation from Grice, Levinson to Sperber and Wilson, and the contributions of speech act theory and politeness to utterance interpretation.
Academic Activities
Books
1. A Pasasage to English, 5th edition.
2. Takahiro Otsu, Current Trends in Pragmatics, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.06.
3. A Waymark of Languages.
4. Utterance Interpretation.
Papers
1. Takahiro Otsu, From justification to modulation:
Similarities and differences of after all and datte, Pragmatics & Cognition, doi.org/10.1075/pc.17028.ots, 25, 2, 337-362, 2019.12.
2. Takahiro Otsu, Multifunctionality of After All: A Unitary Account, Journal of Pragmatics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.04.007, 134, 102-122, 2018.09, 英語の談話標識after allについてこれまで考えられてきた多義性を関連性理論の手続き的制約の枠組みでの一義的定義を試みた。本論文では、関連性理論において長い間提唱されてきたBlakemoreの定義を修正し、文頭、文中、文末に生じるafter allはすべて
'O P after all Q'という推論スキーマにおいて、「evidence(Q)はpreppies assumption (O)とconclusion (P)の間の矛盾を解決するコンテクストを構築するよう聞き手に指図する手続き的制約を符号化していると結論づけた。また、この一義的定義により、日本語で「結局」と訳される文末のafter allと「だって」と訳される文頭のafter allの手続き的意味が同じであることが説明可能である。.
3. Takahiro Otsu, In Other Words and I Mean: Reformulation and Metarepresentation, 『英語英文学論叢』, 68, 15-33, 2018.03.
4. Takahiro Otsu, Complex Procedures Encoded by the Combination of Discourse Markers and Fillers, 15th International Pragmatics Conference, 2017.07.
5. Takahiro Otsu, From Justification to Modulation: Procedural Constraint of After All and Datte, 14th International Pragmatics Conference, 2015.07.
6. Takahiro Otsu, Modulation Marker: A Relevance-theoretic Account of After All and Datte, 6th Intercultural Pragmatics and Communication Conferen, 2014.05.
7. Takahiro Otsu, Relevance-theoretic Account of Anaphoric Processes: the Application of Metarepresentation and its Implications (University of Vlore, Albania), The Said and the Unsaid: Papers on Language, Literature and Cultural Studies , 182-194, 2011.12.
8. Takahiro Otsu, Procedural Information of Anaphoric Expressions: Pronouns, Ellipses and Metarepresentations, Studies in Languages and Cultures, 25, 113-130, 2010.03.
9. Takahiro Otsu, A Cognitive Account of Anaphoric Expressions in English, Current Trends in Pragmatics (eds. Piotr Cap and Joanna Nijakowska, Cambridge Scholars Publishing), Chapter 4 (pp.74-92), 2007.08.
10. Takahiro Otsu, A Metarepresentational Account of Surface and Deep Anaphora: Beyond Linguistic Control and Pragmatic Control, 10th International Pragmatics Conference (International Pragmatics Association), abstracts, p.396, 2007.07, [URL].
11. Takahiro Otsu, A Metarepresentational Approach to Surface/Deep Anaphora, New Developments in Linguistic Pragmatics, 3rd Lodz Symposium, Abstract, p91, 2006.05.
12. Procedural Meaning and Polysemy of the English Discourse Connective After All.
13. A Note on Conversational Implicatures: Grice, Levinson, and Relevance Theory.
14. Takahiro Otsu, Semantic Extension of 'After All': Concession and Justification, Abstracts of 9th International Prgmatics Conference (International Pragmatics Association), p.275, 2005.07, [URL].
15. A Relevance-theortic Account of Speech Acts.
16. Takahiro Otsu, A Relevance-Theoretic Account of the English Discourse Connective 'After All', Proceedings of "English Studies in an Era of Globarization", 2004 International Conference in Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary (The English Language and Literature Association of Korea), pp.273-274, 2004.06.
17. Takahiro Otsu, A Unified Account of the English Discourse Connective 'After All', 言語学からの眺望2003(九州大学出版会), pp.173-187, 2003.10.
18. Background Visual Information and the Comprehension of English Discourse: a Relevance-theoretic Account.
19. Takahiro Otsu, Surface/Deep Anaphora and Contextual Assumptions, 言語科学, 第38号, 2003.02.
20. The Case of Relative Pronouns and the Pattern of Meaning Construction of Relative Clause Constructions for Japanese Learners.
Presentations
1. Takahiro Otsu, Combinations of Procedural Expressions: Domain-specific Procedures and Sequence, 17th International Pragmatics Conference, 2021.06, 会話や対話において、談話標識やフィラー、間投詞などをまとめた手続き的表現が多重生起する例が多く見られる。これは話し手が発話を行いながら、相手の理解度や心的状況を確認、調整しながら組み合わせていく現象である。本研究は、その組み合わせの順番が何により決定されるのかを認知語用論的に説明するものであり、組み合わせの順番は語用論モジュールの活性化の順序の現れであることを、BNCやwordbanksなどの言語コーパスをもとに分析した。.
2. Takahiro Otsu, Multiple Occurrences of Discourse Markers and Fillers: Combination Patterns and Complex Procedures
, 16th International Pragmatics Conference, 2019.06.
3. Takahiro Otsu, In Other Words and I Mean: Restatement and Metarepresentation, 4th International Conference of American Pragmatics, 2018.11, 英語の談話標識in other wordsとI meanは多機能的であり、ともに言い換え(restatement)という談話機能をもっている。本発表では、reformulation markerと呼ばれる2つの談話標識の手続き的制約の違いを関連性理論の枠組みで考察した。reformulationとは解釈行為であるが、in otgher wordsは言い換えられた発話は元の発話を表示したものであるの対して、I meanで言い換えられた発話はもとの発話が符号化する思考を表示したものであると解釈せよという手続き的制約をそれぞれもつと結論づけた。.
4. Takahiro Otsu, From Justification to Modulation: Procedural Constraint of After All and Datte, 14th International Pragmatics Conference, 2015.07.
5. Takahiro Otsu, Modulation Marker: A Relevance-theoretic Account of After All and Datte, 6th Intercultural Pragmatics and Communication Conference, 2014.05.
6. Takahiro Otsu, The Procedure Encoded by the Structure of the Linguistic Expressions, 13th International Pragmatics Conference, 2013.09.
7. , [URL].
8. , [URL].
9. A Metarepresentational Account of Surface/Deep Anaphora: Beyond Linguistic Control and Pragmatic Control, [URL].
10. A Metarepresentational Approach to Surface/Deep Anaphora.
11. Procedural Meaning and Polysemy of the English Discourse Connective 'After All'.
12. Semantic Extension of 'After All': Concession and Justification, [URL].
13. A Relevance-theoretic Account of the English Discourse Connective 'After All'.
14. Surface/Deep Anaphora and Relevance, [URL].
15. Surface/Deep Anaphora and Conversational Implicatures.
16. Kyushu Univeristy's Educational Reform of Foreign Langugaes "From Simplicity to Variety" and its Perspectives.
Membership in Academic Society
  • The English Linguistic Society of Japan
  • The Prgmatics Society of Japan
  • The English Literary Society of Japan
Educational
Educational Activities
I hope you refer to outline of eduacation above.
Other Educational Activities
  • 2020.03.
  • 2016.07.
  • 2014.02.
  • 2011.05.
  • 2011.05.
Social
Professional and Outreach Activities
(1-10) intensive lectures in the University of the Air whose titles are "An Introduction to English Grammar and Writing" (1999), "Form and Meaning of English" (2001), and "An Outline of Utterance Interpretation" (2003) and more.