FUJITA Takeshi

Profile

FUJITA Takeshi Professor
Research Subject

Syntactic analysis of Romance languages in the framework of Generative Grammar

Linguistic problems in the translation of literary works into Romance languages

Research Fields
French Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Generative Grammar
Faculty - Division / Research Group / Laboratory
Division of Humanities / Research Group of Linguistics / Laboratory of Linguistics
Graduate School - Division / Department / Laboratory
Division of Humanities / Department of Linguistics / Laboratory of Linguistics
School - Course / Laboratory
Division of Humanities and Human Sciences / Course of Linguistics and Literature / Laboratory of Linguistics
Contact

Office/Lab: 421
Email: fujitat(at)let.hokudai.ac.jp
Replace “(at)” with “@” when sending email.

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Related Links

Lab.letters

Lab.letters
Laboratory of LinguisticsFUJITA Takeshi Professor

At the domestic forefront of research on the Romance languages: Fields related to generative grammar and contrastive linguistics await you.

The Romance languages, a group of languages derived from Latin, including French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, are research subjects for my students and myself. In this course, students can take a cross-sectional look at several Romance languages and study them at the graduate school level, something that’s found nowhere else in Japan. I see this as a distinguishing feature of this course.

In the course, we also provide the most multilateral guidance in Japan for research related to the field of Generative Grammar of the Romance Languages, not of Japanese or English. Graduate students include many students from faculties other than the Faculty of Letters, including a practicing Italian teacher. I sincerely welcome learning compeers with whom I can share my enthusiasm for the Romance languages.

The garden at the Palace of Versailles, photographed by Professor Fujita on a business trip to France
The Harry Potter series as translated in various countries is sometimes used as a material that’s familiar to the students.

The profundity of languages that deviate from the rules: Research with the aspect of a practical science that cultivates logical thinking ability

Although we’re seldom aware of the importance of languages in our daily lives, we realize their extreme profundity once they become a subject for our consideration. We first shed light on the true nature of the organic languages that humans have created through a logical analysis method adopted in the natural sciences, and we invariably encounter what cannot be explained under existing rules, which we rethink how to explain. A seemingly endless profundity: That’s the greatest attraction of linguistics.

I encourage students to cultivate the power of oral self-expression through presentations at seminars. I’d like students to pay attention to linguistics as a practical science that fosters the power of expression to convey to others the results obtained after logical thinking, a power instrumental in contributing to society.

Message

I specialize in the syntactic analysis of Romance languages, through which I explain various phenomena in the framework of theoretical syntax and observe and analyze the differences between Romance languages from the perspective of contrastive linguistics. As for research guidance of students, I would like to work with those who are interested in every issue related to Romance languages. Specialized domains of my students cover a wide variety of themes ranging from the syntax, semantics, lexicology, morphology and phonology of the French language to the syntax, semantics, lexicology of Spanish and Italian, as well as contrastive linguistics between Romance languages, those between French, Spanish or Italian, on the one hand, and Japanese or English, on the other, translation studies from Japanese into Spanish, Japanese generative grammar or semantics, and methods of teaching French.

In addition, I deal with not only linguistic issues but also those related to the translation of literary works. We specifically discuss problems posed when translating a novel from its original language into another, taking into account the perspective of contrastive linguistics. For those who are fond of reading literature but do not feel inclined to research literature itself, I recommend taking another approach to literature – pursuing it from the angle of translation, which is possible at Hokkaido University Graduate School/School of Humanities and Human Sciences.

I truly hope that those who have only limited knowledge of linguistics and literature but desire to learn more about them enroll at Hokkaido University Graduate School of Humanities and Human Sciences.