I. Outline of the National Language Reseach Institute
1 Objective:
The Institute was established to conduct scientific surveys on the Japanese language and the linguistic life of the Japanese people in order to create reliable bases for rationalization of the Japanese language.
2 Reason for Establishment:
The language and writing system of our nation has been a problem for many years. In the early years of the Meizi Period, the Japanese people were faced with the task of establishing a system of compulsory education in the midst of rapid modernization. After World War II, it became necessary to reexamine language-related issues in order to raise the standard of living and increase efficiency in all areas. As part of putting these language policies into practice, it was necessary to establish an organization to conduct basic survey research on the language. For this purpose, the National Language Research Institute was established under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education in December, 1948.
3 Outline of Research Activities
Since the establishment of the Institute we have made efforts to develop systematic research which up to now was covered under the rubric of Kokugogaku, 'linguistic research on the Japanese national language,' and break ground in the new field which places special importance on the role that the Japanese language plays in the life of the Japanese people. These research activities have focused in particular on the following: (1) Undertaking the difficult task of organizing a system of cooperative research in the human sciences, (2) Approaching linguistic life and linguistic behaviour as an object of investigation using sociological survey methodology, (3) Carrying out large-scale quantitative surveys and developing linguistic research methods which use the computer for that purpose, (4) Carrying out large-scale surveys of dialects in each region of Japan through organizations located throughout the country, (5) Carrying out observational surveys which trace the sequential development of the linguistic ability of pre-school and school children. The results of the survey research activities mentioned above have been published as reports, sources, occasional papers, annual reports and the Kokugo Nenkan, 'Japanese Language Year-book'. In addition, relatively recently there have been efforts made towards innovation in research in the following developing areas: (1) With the establishment of the Centre for Teaching of Japanese as a Foreign Language, development of pedagogical research on the Japanese language, (2) Research for the editing of dictionaries of the Japanese language which are composed of examples collected from a historical perspective, (3) Fundamental research for the purpose of collecting informational data from fields of research on the Japanese language and for organizing, preserving and making this data available for public use.
4.Buildings and Expenditures
[-->updated information] Office Location 3-9-14, Nisigaoka, Kita-ku, Tokyo, 115 JAPAN Area of Site 10,030 sq. meters Buildings The Building 1 5,719 sq. meters(five stories) The Building 2 3,015 sq. meters(three stories) The Building 3 238 sq. meters(two stories) Other Buildings 649 sq. meters T o t a l 9,621 sq. meters Annual Expenditure Budget for the fiscal year 1988 \690,731,000 Personnel expenses \464,747,000 Operating expenses \225,984,0005.Organization
[-->updated information for HTML edition(1997)] The personnel totals 72; this number includes 35 specialists. The institute consists of 7 research departments (devided into 18 sections) and a general affairs division. The departments, sections and their research concerns are as follows: Department of Language Systems Section 1 ----- Grammar Section 2 ----- Lexicology Department of Language Behaviour Section 1 ----- Expression and Communication Section 2 ----- Sociolinguistics Section 3 ----- Experimental Study of Japanese Sounds and Writing System Department of Language Change Section 1 ----- Dialectology Section 2 ----- Language of the Meizi Period Department of Language Pedagogy Section 1 ----- Language Development Department of Computational Linguistics Section 1 ----- Vocabulary Section 2 ----- Writing Section 3 ----- Language Data Processing by Computer Centre for Teaching of Japanese as a Foreign Language Research Section 1 ----- Japanese Contrastive Linguistics Research Section 2 ----- Contrastive Study of Japanese and English Research Section 3 ----- Contrastive Study of Japanese and Indonesian Research Section 4 ----- Contrastive Study of Japanese and Chinese Department of External Services Section for Training of Teachers Section for Development of Language Teaching Materials Section for Editing of Dictionary Department of General Affairs General Affairs Division Budgeting and Accounting Division