About

Kyoko Masuda is a Professor of Japanese and Linguistics at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Modern Languages. Her office is located in Swann 316, and she can be reached by phone at 404-385-6435. Her research focuses on Japanese language and linguistics, contributing to the understanding of Japanese language structure and usage. As a faculty member, she is involved in teaching and mentoring students in Japanese language courses and linguistics, and she plays a key role in the academic programs related to Japanese studies at Georgia Tech.

Research topics

• Linguistics
• Psychology
• Materials science
• Mechanics
• Structural engineering

Selected publications

• Teaching thanking in Japanese

  2025-01-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Concept-based Language Instruction

  2025-01-16 · 2 citations

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This volume showcases how concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) can be effectively integrated into foreign language instruction. C-BLI is grounded in the relationship between theory, research, and practice, incorporating visual aids called SCOBAs (schemas for a complete orientating basis of action) designed to teach accurate scientific concepts. SCOBAs materialize L2 usage-based linguistic and cultural concepts to create tools that promote conceptual understanding and internalization. Three overview chapters lay out the book’s sociocultural theoretic foundations, the role of mediation, usage-based linguistics, and the concept of subjective construal; internalization and its role in re-mediating the mind for L2 learning; and L2 pragmatics teaching and assessment. Subsequent chapters enact praxis via classroom research on C-BLI. Each study focuses on a difficult-to-acquire area of Japanese pragmatics and/or grammar, incorporating SCOBAs that teach core concepts; instruction moves from SCOBA-mediated interactive lecture to internalization tasks involving languaging to language practice. Each chapter concludes with a section for critical reflection to inform future research and materials design. With its focus on research-teaching connections via praxis elucidating the power of linking concept-based language instruction with usage-based linguistics, this book will interest students and scholars of second language acquisition, language teaching and learning, applied linguistics, Japanese, and Asian languages. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at https://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

  PublisherDOI

• The passive and the speaker's perspective in Japanese

  2025-01-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Teaching the Japanese causative by incorporating insights from corpus studies1

  2025-01-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Japanese style-shifting through concepts1

  2025-01-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Learning Japanese interactional particles through a usage-based and concept-based language instruction

  East Asian Pragmatics · 2022-10-25 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The purpose of the current study is two-fold. First, this paper aims to uncover the three-year acquisition process of three interactional particles, ne, yo, and yone by three Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese in a corpus. Among the three particles, yone appeared the latest after one year of study abroad, and the learners progressed in their usage by trying to share epistemic stance and assessments by using yone. However, understanding the epistemic stance for the speaker’s world is challenging. Second, this paper supports the integration of usage-based approaches and sociocultural theory. For teaching interactional particles effectively in the classroom, understanding of the role of intersubjectivity in discourse is crucial. This paper proposes three sets of schematic visual representations for core meanings of ne, yo, and yone, which is essential for concept-based language instruction.

  PublisherDOI

• Discourse functions and pitch patterns of the Japanese interactional particle<i>yo</i>in student-professor conversation

  Journal of Japanese Linguistics · 2021-10-07

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Until recently Japanese interactional particles have largely been investigated in various social contexts without paying much attention to intonation. Building on Shimotani (2006) that examined discourse functions and the intonation yo in informal talk among friends, the current study intends to contribute to interactional particle research by analyzing yo in six sets of one-to-one student-professor conversations. The findings demonstrate that the students and professors exhibited different pitch patterns of yo . Students tended to use yo with a falling pitch [+fall] when performing pre-story-telling, and frequently used the n-desu-yo construction. The professor, on the other hand, often used yo [−fall] when providing opinions or advice. These results will be discussed from Ochs’ social constructive discourse approach perspective. The present study concludes that both discourse functions and pitch patterns in interactional particles are important linguistic resources used to construct speakers’ social personae and stance-building. As such, pedagogical implications will be provided.

  PublisherDOI

• Teaching Subjective Construal and Related Constructions with SCOBAs

  Language and Sociocultural Theory · 2021-06-10 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Japanese and English have substantial typological differences, including different construal patterns. Construal patterns reflect linguistic framing of events, more objectively or more subjectively, depending on whether the speaker is understood as a separate part of the scene or as merged with the scene. English frames events using objective construal more often than subjective construal; Japanese overwhelmingly prefers subjective construal. Understanding construal is critical for Japanese L2 learners, yet overlooked in Japanese pedagogy. This paper considers how SCOBAs (Schema of a Complete Orienting Basis of an Action) can be used in Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI) to teach construal. The first SCOBAs introduced visualize construal concepts; subsequent SCOBAs depict how Japanese subjective construal relates to other constructions, including the non-use of ‘I’, motion verbs, verbs meaning ‘give’, and psychological predicates. We also discuss approaches to promoting internalization of the concepts via a variety of dialogic tasks and application exercises.

  PublisherDOI

• Pair-work dynamics

  Language and Sociocultural Theory · 2018-05-10 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Adopting microgenetic analysis of languaging (Swain, 2006) in pair-work, this study aims to advance our understanding of learners’ developmental processes for the complex concepts of Japanese particles ni/de. Two pairs whose learning outcomes differed were chosen, and their languaging was examined, focusing on ‘stronger’ learners, the peers who showed more target-like knowledge of particles on fill-in-theblank pre-test than their partners. Both interaction patterns and quality of engagement appeared to have facilitated their conceptual internalization for the Japanese particles ni/de. A stronger learner in one of the pairs demonstrated reciprocal elaborate engagement in a collaborative pattern, and greatly improved his understanding and retained it longer-term. In contrast, a stronger learner in the other pair, who demonstrated non-reciprocal limited engagement in dominant-passive interaction, showed no development over time. Follow-up interviews revealed these peers’ differing attitudes toward pair-work, which were likely conducive to their engagement in pair-work and L2 learning outcome.

  PublisherDOI

• Cognitive Linguistics and Japanese Pedagogy

  2018-02-15 · 2 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kazuki TSUGIHASHI

  Kobe Steel (Japan)

  10 shared

• Akio SUGIMOTO

  7 shared

• Koichi Honke

  Kobe Steel (Japan)

  4 shared

• Angela Labarca

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  3 shared

• Noriko Iwasaki

  3 shared

• Rachel Hayes‐Harb

  University of Utah

  2 shared

• Kerry Green

  Central Michigan University

  2 shared

• Masato SAEKI

  Shibaura Institute of Technology

  2 shared