Research Highlights

There are various approaches to the study of the meaning of language. A typical one would be the position for which meaning is related to things that exist outside of language. In this case, the relationship between language and the world, and between words and things, is the main point of interest. An alternative position is one which considers meaning as something that exists in the human mind. For example, a cognitive object such as a concept or image could be regarded as meaning. Others see language as a tool and try to understand meaning in terms of what we can do with it or actions we can accomplish with it.

There is, however, yet another position that sees meaning as the relationship between linguistic elements in language. According to this line of thinking, the meaning of a word or a sentence arises from the relationships that exist between them. Research is being advanced to refine this semantic approach and construct a systematic theory of meaning with a particular focus on argumentative relations. Argumentation is generally thought of as a persuasive technique and falls within the realm of rhetorical research. However, under this theory, argumentation is considered the essence of language and the basic unifying principle governing vocabulary and grammar.

This approach, called "argumentative semantics," was proposed in France in the 1980s and continues to make remarkable developments. Within this theoretical framework, my research mainly deals with French literary works. It focuses on analyzing and describing linguistic phenomena at the interface of semantics and pragmatics (e.g., conditional sentences, lexical meanings, metaphors, proverbs, and implicit meanings). One of my primary goals is to show that this theory enables us to account for phenomena that cannot be observed and problems that cannot be solved by other approaches so as to prove its superiority. Another one of my aims is to further develop the theory into something more coherent through my research.

A community of researchers with similar interests is growing all over the world, not only in France but also in continental Europe, North Africa, Latin America, and here in Asia. The languages studied are varied, expanding beyond French to English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Latin, Modern Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

(2020/12/21)