It is a great honor for me to extend a warm welcome to all of you to San Francisco, as we begin the Second International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) at San Francisco State University (SFSU). This book of abstracts, terminology, and presentation materials contains the works that will be presented by the participants in the Second ICPLJ. The language used can be either English or Japanese.

The Second ICPLJ is jointly hosted and/or sponsored by the Northern California Japanese Teachers' Association (NCJTA), the College of Humanities, SFSU, the Department of Languages & Literatures, SFSU, the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS), and the Japan-US Friendship Commission. The conference is intended to bring together researchers on the cutting edge of Japanese linguistics and to offer a forum in which their research results can be presented in a form that is applicable to those desiring practical applications in the fields of teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology.

Historically, linguistics has developed through diversification, such as theoretical linguistics (e.g., Noam Chomsky's syntactic-based generative transformational grammar, which attempts to define and describe, by a set of rules, all the grammatical sentences of a given language), psycholinguistics (i.e., the study of the mental process that an individual uses in producing and understanding language as well as of how an individual learns language), sociolinguistics (i.e., the study of language in relation to social factors, including the study of language choice in bilingual or multilingual communities), and applied linguistics (i.e., the study of language and linguistics in relation to practical problems, including translation, interpretation, and second/foreign language teaching). At the same time, however, a centripetal phenomenon has been observed simultaneously, such as the linguistic revolution originated by Chomsky, which has exerted an enormous influence on many areas of contemporary language studies. Considering these intricate 20th century developments in linguistics and its related fields, the International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese at SFSU has integrated the diverse fields of linguistics in pluralistic ways. That is, not only some of the world's most eminent scholars of Japanese linguistics, such as Dr. Masayoshi Shibatani of Kobe University, Japan and Dr. Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku of the University of California, San Diego, have agreed to deliver the keynote addresses; but language teachers and those graduate students who aspire to become Japanese-language teachers have also gathered at this conference.

We are, in fact, fully cognizant of the second issue raised above--i.e., teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language--partly because SFSU is located in San Francisco where a variety of Japanese--both Japanese Americans and newcomers from Japan--reside. Here at SFSU, for example, we often encounter students of Japanese heritage in our Japanese-language classrooms. Some were born in the United States, but their mothers are Japanese. Others were even born in Japan and brought to the United States when they were very young. Sadly enough, many of these students do not speak fluent Japanese or they have simply forgotten their mother tongue. In many bilingual and multilingual societies, a language shift in immigrant families takes place rapidly, with a prevalent pattern of a total shift to the dominant or prestige language within two to four generations. Unfortunately, parents' desire to maintain their native language and cultural heritage is often unsuccessful. In order to raise awareness about the heritage language, therefore, we would like to make the conference beneficial not only to researchers in linguistics but also to the public in general.

Since the late Professor Toshiko Mishima Juretzka joined the SFSU's faculty in the late 1960s, the Japanese Program has grown to the point where we are now capable of hosting an international conference on linguistics. In 1997, to commemorate the late Professor Mishima Juretzka's great contribution to training Japanese-language teachers working not only in northern California but all over the world, it was decided to hold an international conference on practical linguistics. The first conference, which attracted a great deal of attention from scholars working in diverse areas of linguistics both domestically and internationally, took place in May 1998, with a great number of participants. It was attended by senior scholars such as the two keynote speakers--Dr. Susumu Kuno of Harvard University and Dr. Seiichi Makino of Princeton University--and younger generations of researchers in the United States and Japan. The conference enjoyed an unprecedentedly large gathering for a newly launched conference on linguistics and ended with great success. Furthermore, we published a book of selected papers presented at the conference, which included the plenary lectures delivered by Drs. Kuno and Makino (Gengogaku to Nihongo Kyooiku [Linguistics and Japanese Language Education], Kurosio Publishers, Japan, 1999). The publication of the papers thus enabled the fruits of the conference to reach an even larger audience around the world, further benefiting an innumerable number of researchers, teachers, and their students. In addition, it was after the conference that the policy of holding an international conference on practical linguistics every two years was decided.

Since the inception of the conference, we have been pursuing the following objectives:

As briefly mentioned above, for the First International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese, which was held in May 1998, we were honored to be able to invite two internationally prominent linguists, Dr. Susumu Kuno and Dr. Seiichi Makino. Dr. Kuno, Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University, is recognized throughout the world for his scholarship as well as for his many publications, such as "The Structure of the Japanese Language" (published by the MIT Press in 1973) and "Functional Syntax: Anaphora, Discourse and Empathy" (published by the University of Chicago Press in 1987). Dr. Makino, Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, is more pedagogically oriented, having served as an experienced oral proficiency trainer in Japanese for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). He is also well-known internationally for his many publications, such as "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" (published by the Japan Times in 1986) and a recent textbook titled "Nakama (Friends)" (published by Houghton Mifflin in 1998).

For the Second International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese, a number of plenary lectures have been planned on diverse issues related to Japanese linguistics and Japanese-language teaching. As already mentioned above, we have invited two world renowned linguists, Dr. Masayoshi Shibatani of Kobe University, Japan and Dr. Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku of the University of California, San Diego as the keynote speakers. Dr. Shibatani, President of the Linguistic Society of Japan, has not only been active in the research functions of various professional associations, but he has simultaneously conducted cross-linguistic research such as "manipulative and indirect causatives" since the early 1970s. His interests include typological studies, i.e., typological linguistic universals and cross-linguistic differences, and he is the author of numerous books and articles, such as "The Languages of Japan" (published by Cambridge University Press in 1990). Dr. Tohsaku, who is more pedagogically oriented, like Dr. Makino, is a key player in language education in California. Dr. Tohsaku has written a numerous textbooks on teaching Japanese; among his recent publications are "Yookoso! (Welcome): An Introduction to Contemporary Japanese" and "Yookoso! (Welcome): Continuing with Contemporary Japanese" (both published by McGraw-Hill in 1995). Therefore, Drs. Shibatani and Tohsaku parallel Drs. Kuno and Makino in terms of scholarly achievements.

I would also like to add that, as at the first conference, younger generations of researchers have also gathered at this conference. Furthermore, Kurosio, a prestigious publishing house in Tokyo, Japan, has again agreed to publish papers to be presented in the conference. This suggests Kurosio's belief that the Second ICPLJ--like the previous one--will attract papers that can contribute to the advancement of the teaching of Japanese as well as Japanese linguistics.

I am indebted to a large number of people who have supported this conference. First of all, special thanks go to the graduate students of Japanese at SFSU who have given time generously for preparation for the conference. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and the College of Humanities at SFSU for their continued support for the conference. Last, but not least, without the grant from the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies, in conjunction with the Japan-US Friendship Commission, we would not have been able to invite Drs. Shibatani and Tohsaku to the Second International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that, as today's society increasingly necessitates global interdependency, the need for deep cross-cultural understanding becomes more and more imperative. For example, the more the political and economic relationship strengthens between the United States and Japan, the more opportunities the peoples of these two nations have for contact and interaction. Unfortunately, misunderstandings based on linguistic as well as cultural differences take place on many levels. Both the United States and Japan are active in promoting programs that foster understanding, but it is linguistics--practical linguistics in particular--that provides the means to meet such social challenges. As we end the 20th century and begin the 21st when more societal changes--particularly, numerous and complex problems in society where language plays a role--are likely to take place, we strongly believe that this conference holds significant meaning. We also believe that it is particularly valuable to hold an international conference on Japanese linguistics in San Francisco--a city where 12,000 Japanese Americans reside and where the once ethnic enclave Japantown looks back over the past thirty years of progress. At the same time, we are fully aware of the special significance of this conference, which will provide opportunities to consider the prospects of practical linguistics of Japanese for the 21st century. The main goal of the conference is therefore to bring a comprehensive treatment of Japanese linguistics to this conference for the past and future. My colleagues--Professors Yukiko Sasaki Alam (Conference Co-Chair), Midori McKeon (Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching of Japanese Language and Culture), and Eika Tai (Program Coordinator)--and I sincerely hope that the conference will not only be a great success but also a memorable event for all of you.

Masahiko Minami, Conference Co-Chair