2020 Michael K. Harless Faculty Excellence Award

Hironori Nishi, World Languages and Literature

Dr. Hironori Nishi is assistant professor of Japanese at the University of Memphis. After earning his M.A. at Portland State University and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Nishi has been teaching elementary to advanced-level Japanese language courses, Japanese linguistics, and Japanese culture courses at the University of Memphis.

His current research interests include, but are not limited to, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, language change, second language acquisition, and katakana loanwords in Japanese. His wide range of academic interests is demonstrated by his publications. In his recent article "An overview of the Japanese quotative itta and itte ita" published in Pragmatics, Dr. Nishi demonstrated how the evidential marking function of the Japanese aspect marker -te iru is utilized with the verb iu 'to say' in naturally occurring conversations. In "English within Japanese: Loanwords from English in Japanese as a vocabulary pool for EFL education" published in the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, Dr. Nishi explored how loanwords in Japanese can benefit learners of English in Japan.

In addition to his role as an assistant professor at the University of Memphis, Dr. Nishi currently serves as the president of the Southeastern Association of Teachers of Japanese.