Associate Professor J. Kevin Varden
Ph.D. Linguistics

Phonology, phonetics, their interface, a bit of semantics,
and the history of Japanese...

last updated: Saturday, September 12, 2009

in Boston for the STS conference '04 =>
(thanks to Donna E. for the pic)

Contact information

Address
J. Kevin Varden, Associate Professor
Center for Liberal Arts; Meiji Gakuin University
1518 Kamikurata-cho; Totsuka-ku, Yokohama; 244-8539; JAPAN

Email
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Office
Building 1, Rm. 1418, Yokohama campus

2009 Teaching Schedule

M2: English Communication 1
M/F Lunch: Special Studies in English (iBT TOEFL reading/listening class)
M3: Academic Literacy 2 (CALL software reading class)
M4: Studies in English 1 (Fall semester: "Introduction to American Culture Through Movies")

T3: Thesis Writing 2 (adjunct to Graduate School)

T4: 4th yr. seminar "The Englishes of North America" (adjunt to Dept. of English; filling in for Prof. Tsutomu Sato during his sabbatical)

T4: Multilingualism & Multiculturalism 1, 2: "A Linguistic History of Japan" (foreign exchange student class)

Th3: Special Lectures on English Languages [sic] "The Sounds of English" (Master's Program in Education, Tsukuba University)

2009 Office hours
Shirokane campus: Tuesdays by appointment
Yokohama campus: Mondays by appointment

Please email in advance.

Past & ongoing interests & activities (most links pending review & revision)

Visualizing Speech Reductions - link pending

This is a fairly new project stemming from a book chapter on using the freeware WASP for pronunciation training of English speech reductions--in other words, on learning natural English as opposed to classroom English.

Vowel Devoicing - here

    Mostly still just an html version of my dissertation, but also the beginnings of an annotated vowel devoicing bibliography.

Laboratory Phonology - link pending

    Using phonetic techniques for phonological investigations--that's what Laboratory Phonology is all about, and the topic of the seminars I've done for MeiGaku's Dept. of English.

the cogPrime database - link pending

    Research focusing on the construction of a database of cognitive primes initially supported by the Special Research Project of the Investigation into Languages & Cultures of the East and the West at Tsukuba University. The cogPrime database is a web-accessible body of adjectives in several languages that have had various features assigned to them. Unfortunately the test browser is still unavailable, but work is finally under way to get it back up and running.

the MultiMedia Materials Project - here

Research funded by the Institute of Liberal Arts (research institute of the Center for Liberal Arts) fiscal years 2004/2005. Intended to provide interesting AV materials to our students to supplement their normal curriculum.

Feature Geometry - link pending

    Resource pages for those interested in Feature Geometry, including a list of papers on the subject.

web IPA images - link pending

    A set of images based on the SIL International freeware IPA fonts.

other stuff - here

    Other things I've worked on over the years.

Publications

1998 Ph. D. dissertation: On High Vowel Devoicing in Standard Modern Japanese: Implications for Modern Phonological Theory. University of Washington Dept. of Linguistics. - html (pdf files)

1992 MA thesis: Laryngeal/Labial Alternations in Japanese. University of Washington.

Books & Texts

Sano, M., T. Yamaoka, A. Matsumoto, Y. Sato et al. (2006). Sunshine English Course 1, 2, 3 Jr. High textbook. Tokyo: Kairyudo.

Sato, Yasushi, J. Kevin Varden & Hiromi Sato (2001). Improving Your Writing (Gendairyoku wo Tsukeru Eisakubun). Tokyo: Nan'un-do.

Varden, J. Kevin (2000) Let Us Remember, Lest We Forget: The WWII Naval Experiences of Edward James Varden. Self-published book presented to father; also available as a web publication - html

Articles

Varden, J. Kevin (2006). Visualizing English Speech Reductions Using the Free Phonetic Software Package WASP. In Perspectives on Teaching Connected Speech to Second Language Speakers, JD Brown & Kimi Kondo-Brown (Eds.). NFLRC, University of Hawaii Press.

Varden, J. Kevin (2005). Multimedia Materials Project Update. Karuchuru 2:106-124.

Varden, J. Kevin (2004). Current Events in English. Karuchuru 1:57-73.

Varden, J. Kevin (2002) On features. Report of the Special Research Project of the Typological Investigation into Languages & Cultures of the East and West 2002 Vol. 2 pp. 871-900. - pdf file (80k)

Varden, J. Kevin (2001) cogPrime: A database of semantic features for investigations into word compositionality. Report of the Special Research Project of the Typological Investigation into Languages & Cultures of the East and West 2001 Vol. 2 pp. 809-843. - pdf file (80k)

Varden, J. Kevin (2001). Phonetic font images for the web. ms., Tsukuba University. - pdf file (60k)

Varden, J. Kevin (1999) Overlap at the interface: High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese. Journal of the American Society of Acoustics 106.4: 2153. Abstract of poster presentation at ASA 138.

Varden, J. Kevin (1998) Acoustic correlates of "devoiced" vowels in Japanese. Journal of the American Society of Acoustics 103.5: 3088. Abstract of poster accepted but not presented at ASA 135.

Varden, J. Kevin (1997) High Vowel Devoicing in Standard Modern Japanese: A 'slow-speech' rule in the making? Meiji Gakuin Review 98: 53-80.

Sato, Tsutomu & J. Kevin Varden (1997) Taiwanjin ryuugakusei ni yoru nihongo bouin museika no shuutoku ni tsuite (On the devoicing of Japanese vowels by Taiwanese [exchange] students). Meiji Gakuin Review 98: 41-51.

Varden, J. Kevin & Tsutomu Sato (1996) Devoicing of Japanese Vowels by Taiwanese learners of Japanese. In Proceedings of the IVth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP 96) Vol. 2: 618-621.

Varden, Kevin (1995) VOT of non-monolingual speakers. Meiji Gakuin Review 93:41-58.

Varden, Kevin (1995) Teaching 'fast speech' reductions in the classroom: Initial results of a study in progress. Meiji Gakuin Review 92: 33-57.

Varden, Kevin (1995) On Two-morpheme Sino-Japanese words: Are they really two—yes, two—two morphemes in one? Working Papers in Linguistics—UW 12: 147-154.

Varden, Kevin (1992) On Japanese verbal morphology: A templatic approach. Working Papers in Linguistics—UW 10: 306-323.

Presentations

"Acoustic Correlates of devoiced Japanese vowels." Poster to be presented at the ASA 158, San Antonio, Texas, October 26-30, 2009.

"The Right Tools for the Job: Giving your Students a Voice with Voice Tools. Wimba Voice Tools by Interlect." 47th All-Japan Research Meeting of the Japan Association for Language Education and Technology (LET), Nagoya Gakuin University, Nagoya, Japan, August 7-9, 2007.

"Modeling Phonetics & Phonology: Of what nature a Gestural Geometry?" Poster presented at Sound to Sense: 50+ Years in Speech Communication, MIT, Cambridge, MA, June 11-13, 2004.

"Overlap at the interface: High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese." Poster pressented at ASA 138, Columbus, OH, Nov. 2, 1999.

"Devoicing of Japanese Vowels by Taiwanese learners of Japanese." Paper presented at ICSLP 96; Philadelphia, PA, USA, Sept. 1996.

"Labial as a default place of articulation for Japanese." Paper presented at NWLC 8, UW, Seattle, WA, USA, April 1992.

"/i/-final irregular verbal stems in Japanese." Paper presented at NWLC 8, UW, Seattle, WA, USA, April 1992.

Reviews

Denison, David (1993) English Historical Syntax. Essex, England: Longman. JALT Journal 16.2: 250-253, Dec. 1994.

Tuck, Allene, Ed. (1993) Oxford Dictionary of Business English for Learners of English. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. The Language Teacher 18.10: 67, Oct. 1994.

Murphy, Raymond (1993) Basic Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Language Teacher 18.5: 36, May 1994.

Other

Nomura, Keizo, Chief Ed. (2008). O-LEX Japanese-English Dictionary. Tokyo: Oobunsha. Proofreader.

Yagishita, Seishi, Ed. (2007). Sunny Views of the Thatched Roof Houses—Japan's Original Landscapes Found in Ibaraki (Hidamari no Kayabuki minka—Ibaraki ni miru Nihon no Genfuukei). Hitachinaka, Ibaraki, Japan: Yamizo Bunkasha. Proofreader.

Hanamoto, K., Nomura, K., Hayashi, Y, Eds. (2002). Lexis English-Japanese Dictionary. Tokyo: Oobunsha. Proofreader.

Roca, Iggy & Wyn Johnson (1999) A Course in Phonology. Blackwell Publishers. Draft proofreading & jacket blurb.

Stimulus Plus™ (1998). Hypercard-based stimuli presentation software title. here

(1997) Signalyze Ei-Wa Goihyoo (Signalyze English-Japanese Glossary). Signalyze™ software manual addendum, with the kind assistance of Kikuo Maekawa.

Maruta, Kenjiro (1994) Daigaku nyushi "derujun" hatsuon•akusento 400 (400-word pronunciation/accent practice for university exams). Proofreading and native-English speaker voice recording.
© 2009, J. Kevin Varden. All rights reserved.