Daiho Kitaoka

Daiho Kitaoka has been teaching Japanese at the Language Centre of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) since September 2019. Before coming to Ningbo, he taught Japanese and related subjects in China, Kazakhstan, and Canada.

He completed his doctoral studies in Linguistics at the University of Ottawa (Canada) in 2024. The thesis examines the syntax of the mass-count distinction, plurals, general number, and classifiers in Japanese.

Research Interests:

Syntax

• Theoretical Syntax of nominal domain in classifier languages (e.g., Japanese), in comparison with those in non-classifier languages (e.g., English); e.g., general number, incorporation, mass-count distinction, plurality, number and classifiers;
• Syntactic analysis of floating quantifiers, in particular, those in Japanese and in English;

Phonology

• The structures of moras and syllables;
• Language games in Japanese (e.g., zuuja-go, sakasa kotoba);

Pedagogy

• Task-based and game-based foreign language teaching and learning (Japanese, English)