Student Academic Achievements in the JPN Program

1. Xiong, Raymond (Class of 2026) A Mixed-Effects Analysis of Addressee Honorifics in Japanese Voice Actor Events. Forthcoming in the 2026 Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA).

News on Linguistics: https://linguisticsprogram.duke.edu/news

2.  Zhang, Xuyang (EAS graduate student) Beyond Politeness: The Strategic Use of Addressee Honorifics and Plain Forms in Japanese Self-Introductions on a Gay Dating App. Forthcoming in the 2026 Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA).

3. Nil Nyah (Class of 2027) The Interpretation of English Bare Plurals by Native Japanese Speakers. Forthcoming in the 2026 Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). 

News on AMES: https://asianmideast.duke.edu/news/japanese-program-student-presents-research-national-linguistics-conference

4. Suemin (Mina) Kim (Class of 2026) An Indexical Model Analysis of Addressee Honorifics Produced by L1 Japanese Children Ages 2 to 4. Paper to be presented at the 2026 Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL). Atlanta, Georgia. (3/28/2026)

5. Jose Chavez (Class of 2025), double majors: Chemistry and Japanese

Conference presentation: Reexamining the interpretation of English definite plurals by L1 Spanish speakers: persistent transfer effects from Spanish. Paper presented at the 2025 Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL). Boca Raton, Florida. (4/12/2025)

News on AMES: https://asianmideast.duke.edu/news/japanese-major-student-presented-research-project-2025-southeastern-conference-linguistics

6. Layla Arty (Class of 2024), double majors: Biology and Japanese

Conference presentation: Acquisition of the English Plural Form by Native Japanese Speakers. Paper presented at the 23rd International Conference of the Japan Second Language Association (J-SLA2023), Gakushuin University. (10/14/2023)

News on AMES: https://asianmideast.duke.edu/news/japanese-major-presents-research-project-international-conference-japan

7. Leah Okamura (Class of 2023), double majors: Computer Science and Japanese; now a software engineer at CrowdStrike

Conference presentation: Scope of negation and conjunction in heritage Japanese. Poster presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of Linguistic Society of America. Denver, Colorado. (1/8/2023)

8. Abby List (Class of 2022), double majors: Computer Science and Statistics, minor: Japanese; now a software engineer at Microsoft

Paper: An experimental investigation of the deep o-constraint in Japanese causative constructions. Journal of Japanese Linguistics, 40, 1, 87-108. 

Publication: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jjl-2024-2005/html

9. Jennifer Shen (Class of 2022), double majors: Chemistry and Japanese; now Pharmacy school student at UNC Chapel Hill

Paper: Simplified grammar in both languages? On scope assignment in Q-Neg sentences in English-dominant heritage Chinese speakers. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of  America (PLSA) 7(1). 5228.

View and download the publication:https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/PLSA/article/view/5228

10. Soren Christensen (Class of 2022), double majors: Neuroscience and Japanese; now Duke Medical School student

Paper:  Style shifts in Japanese video game commentary monologues. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (PLSA) 7(1). 5227. 

View and download the publication:https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/PLSA/article/view/5227