Hiroko Yamashita

Professor

Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

College of Liberal Arts

hxygsl@rit.edu

585-475-6074

Office Location

EAS-3239

Hiroko Yamashita

Professor

Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

College of Liberal Arts

Education

BA, University of Southern Mississippi; MA, Ph.D., The Ohio State University

hxygsl@rit.edu

585-475-6074

Areas of Expertise

Japanese language

Japanese culture

Linguistics

Psycholinguistics

Sentence comprehension and production

Language pedagogy

Select Scholarship

Invited Keynote/Presentation

Yamashita, Hiroko. "A Piece for Which Puzzle(s)? Human Language Processing and Production in Less-commonly Investigated Languages." Issues in Japanese Psycholinguistics from Comparative Perspectives. The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL), Tohoku University. Sendai, Japan. 10 Sep. 2021. Keynote Speech.

Yamashita, Hiroko. "Artificial language learning for psycholinguistic studies." University of Tokyo linguistics colloquium. University of Tokyo. Tokyo, Japan. 7 Jun. 2017. Lecture.

Yamshita, Hiroko. "Length-Based Phrase-Ordering in Japanese and its Interaction with Canonicality." Cognitive Science Colloquium. University of Buffalo. Buffalo, NY. Apr. 2012. Address.

Published Conference Proceedings

Yamashita, Hiroko. "Toward Inclusive Modern Language Teaching and Learning: Integration of Cognitive Science and Pedagogy." Proceedings of the Symposium on Current Issues in East Asian Languages and Literatures. Ed. Nakayama, M., R. Torrance, Z. Xie, J. Bundschuh, J. Nunes, & L. Stirek. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Knowledge Bank, 2021. Web.

Peer Reviewed/Juried Poster Presentation or Conference Paper

Yamashita, Hiroko and Franklin Chang. "Is Explicit Teaching of Second Languages Always Helpful? An Artificial Language Study." Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. Ed. Albert Kim. Boulder, CO: n.p..

Yamashita, Hiroko and Franklin Chang. "A multiple argument overlap boost in Japanese structural priming." Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. Ed. Shari Speer. Columbus, OH: n.p..

Full Length Book

Yamashita, Hiroko, Yuki Hirose, and Jerome L. Packard. Processing and Producing Head-final Structures. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2011. Print.

Book Chapter

Kondo, Tadahisa and Hiroko Yamashita. "Why speakers produce scrambled sentences: Analyses of spoken language corpus in Japanese." Processing and Producing Head-final Structures. Ed. Hiroko Yamashita, Yuki Hirose, and Jerome L. Packard. Dortrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2011. 195-215. Print.

Formal Presentation

Yamashita, Hiroko. “Teaching a Foreign Language to Deaf Students: Tools, Techniques, andChallenges.” Association for the Department of Foreign Languages/Modern Language Association, MLA. Rochester, NY. June 2010. Presentation.

Published Article

Yamashita, Hiroko and Tadahisa Kondo. “Contexual Frequency as a Predictor for Word-order in JapaneseSentence Production.” Technical Report of The Institute of Electronics, Information andCommunication Engineers, 2010. Print. *

Currently Teaching

MLJP-201

Beginning Japanese I

4 Credits

This is the first course in the first year sequence designed for students with no prior exposure to Japanese. It provides a sound introduction to the language as it is spoken and written today. A strong emphasis is placed on oral proficiency and the appropriate use of language in Japanese society. Hiragana and Katakana syllabary is also taught for written communication. Not open to students with prior Japanese instruction. Students must take placement exam if this is their first RIT class in Japanese and they have some prior study of Japanese.

In the News

November 15, 2023

Faculty receive new grant to expand foreign language education offerings with a focus on STEAM

Faculty in RIT’s Modern Languages and Cultures department received an International Research and Studies grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund the development of new materials and curricula for Chinese, Italian, and Spanish courses that focus on STEAM. Associate Professor Zhong Chen, Principal Lecturer Elisabetta D’Amanda, and Department Chair Sara Armengot will spend the next three years developing, testing, and implementing the new materials in the classroom.
April 26, 2021

Cultural exchange goes virtual for international game prototyping course

As part of a gameplay and prototyping class at RIT this spring, 25 game design and development students got to participate in a virtual cultural exchange with 30 students at a Japanese college. The teams learned about each other’s cultures and overcame language barriers and time zone differences to create projects for a global game jam.

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