Degrees

PhD, University of London, 1995

BA (Honours) 1st Class, University of Newcastle, England, 1987

Education

University of London, 1987–1995

University of Freiburg, Germany, Institute of Comparative Germanic Philology and Scandinavian Studies, 1989, 1991

University of Lund, Sweden, guest researcher, Department of Scandinavian Languages, 1992–1993

University of Ghent, Belgium, visiting researcher, Department of Dutch Linguistics and Flemish Dialectology, 1992

University of Würzburg, Germany, 1985–1986

University of Newcastle, England, 1984–1987

University of Newcastle, England, 1982–1984 (Pre-med, Medicine)

Awards

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, three-year grant to research ‘jearse’ and ‘dow’ in America and the origins of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in human language, 2019-22 (grant no. 19K00698)

British Academy three-year studentship for PhD research at the University of London

Belgian Government, Flemish Community, Department of Education Scholarship for research at the University of Ghent

Robson-Scott Travelling Scholarship, Institute of Germanic Studies, for research at the University of Lund in Sweden

Edna Purdie Scholarship, Royal Holloway College, University of London, for research in Sweden and Germany

Positions

2007 (April) – 2011 (September): Assistant professor, Fukuoka University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English

2011 (October) – present: Associate professor, Fukuoka University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English

From 2017 (April): Associate professor, Fukuoka University Graduate School

From 2019 (October): Professor, Fukuoka University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English

Overseas research

April – September 2018: Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge University

October – December 2018: Visiting academic, Section for African Languages, University of Cape Town

January – March 2019: Visiting Fellow, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney

Reviews

External reviewer, Oxford University Press, July 2016 (Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics)

External reviewer, Brill, December 2016 (Festschrift, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik)

External reviewer, John Benjamins, March 2018

Academic societies

Japanese Society for Historical Linguistics

  • 2016- Member of the editorial board

Linguistic Association of Great Britain

Responsibilities

Conferences
  • 2014 Co-organized Language Variation and Change Research Forum, Kyushu University, Japan
  • 2015 Co-organized Language Variation and Change Research Forum, Fukuoka University, Japan
  • 2016 Co-organized Language Variation and Change Research Forum, Kyushu University, Japan
International Center committee
  • 2012-13
  • 2013-14
Entrance exam committee
  • 2014-15
Study abroad committee
  • 2011-12
First-year tutor
  • 2015-16
  • 2016-17
Open Campus
  • 2010 Meeting prospective students
  • 2012 Lecture ‘English around the world’
  • 2016 Lecture ‘A brief history of language, Where does English come from? English around the world, Why are there different languages?’
Lectures to high school students
  • 2009 ‘How and why languages change’
  • 2012 ‘History of English’

Other

English language café
  • 2007-2009 Set up English Language Café at Fukuoka University for students to chat in English at lunchtime
English language cinema
  • 2007-2009 Set up English Language Cinema showing films in English once a month
Judge of speech contest
  • 5 March 2016 E.S.S., Seinan Gakuin University, Fukuoka
  • 4 March 2017 E.S.S., Seinan Gakuin University, Fukuoka