May 5, 2025/ 1:00 PM

Colloquium with Yoshiko Matsumoto

Many people would agree that it is important to create a community inclusive of persons with different conditions and backgrounds of life. The question is how we can achieve such a goal. Focusing on long-standing concerns of aging and the generation divide, I will discuss findings from the project “Connecting Generations Through Haiku,” in which haikuis used as the medium of an intergenerational communication between older adults with mild cognitive impairment and college age students. As both parties learn how to appreciate and create the art of haiku, a form that is accessible to all ages and a wide variety of cognitive conditions, they also share each other’s personal interests and histories during their conversations. Analysis of their conversations reveals what is the essence of human communication in the current hyper-technological and -cognitive society and what it means to be inclusive.

Yoshiko Matsumoto has been interested in studying the structure and uses of language as part of human experience and advocating equal attention to diverse languages and their users including those that may be marginalized in research and in society. Her publications include Faces of Aging: The Lived Experiences of the Elderly in Japan (2011) and “Pragmatics of understanding: Centrality of the local—Cases from Japanese discourse and Alzheimer’s Interaction” (2020). She is the Yamato Ichihashi Professor in Japanese History and Civilization, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and by courtesy, Linguistics at Stanford University.

Sponsor(s): Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies