Overseas Activities
Representative Keynote presentations, Summer school lectures and Invited Talks at Conferences and Colloquia (included only ones delivered in English)
Mutsumi Imai (January 26, 2021). Evolution of verb meanings in children and L2 adult learners through reorganization of an entire semantic domain: The case of Chinese carry/hold verbs. Chinese University of Hong Kong Seminar for the Department of linguistics and modern languages. (online)
Mutsumi Imai (July 28, 2020). Exploitation of iconicity in Hard-of-Hearing and Hearing individuals. Talk presented at the British Cognitive Linguistic Society Preconference Workshop: Iconicity in language: theoretical issues and future directions. (Organizers: Mutsumi Imai & Marcus Pearlman) University of Birmingham, UK (Online)
Mutsumi Imai (September 11, 2019). “How do children learn difficult words?: Unraveling complex processes of lexical acquisition” Chair of Invited Symposium at paEpsy 2019 9-12 September 2019, The Jahnallee campus of the University of Leipzig, Germany
Mutsumi Imai(MAY 3, 2019). The role of iconicity in language acquisition and evolution. Plenary lecture at The 12th International Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature 3-5 May 2019, Lund University, Sweden.
Mutsumi Imai (September 6, 2018). Evolution of Verb Meanings in L1 Children and L2 Adult Learners : The Case of Chinese Carry/Hold Verbs. Department of Speech and Language Department, Turk Univerisity, Finland.
Mutsumi Imai (March 8, 2018). Evolution of Verb Meanings in Children and L2 Adult Learners : The Case of Chinese Carry/Hold Verbs. Lecture delivered at the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Auckland University, New Zeland.
Mutsumi Imai. (May 15-19, 2017) Word meaning representation and lexical acquisition. Intensive lectures, Intensive Lectures, St. Charles University. Prague, Czech Republic
Mutsumi Imai (August 13, 2017). The mental functions of classifiers. Invited talk at the workshop on numeral classifiers and classifier languages. Yonsei University Underwood International College, Yonsei International Campus. Incheon, Korea.
Mutsumi Imai (July 10, 2017). Sound symbolism and the symbol grounding problem. Invited lecture. Warwick University. Coventry, UK.
Mutsumi Imai (July 7, 2017) Symbol grounding and de-grounding in language acquisition and evolution: The case of sound-symbolism. Invited talk. CLS-MPI Iconicity Focus Group workshop “Types of iconicity in language use, development, and processing.”
Mutsumi Imai (December 17, 2016). Sound symbolism and the symbol grounding problem: How sound symbolism can be iconic and language-specific. Plenary address at the Ninjal International Symposium 2016: Mimetics in Japanese and other languages in the world. Ninjal (National Institute for Language and Linguistics) Tachikawa-shi, Tokyo
Mutsumi Imai (December 10, 2016). How culture affects children’s use of social and pragmatic cues in their inference of word meanings. Invited speech for the Symposium: How do pragmatics and cognitive linguistics approach cultural differences? The Pragmatics Society of Japan. Shimonoseki City University.
Mutsumi Imai (November 17, 2016). Abductive inference in learning of word meanings and scientific concepts in young children. Invited talk for the Leipzig University Department of Educational Psychology Colloquium Series. Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
Mutsumi Imai (November 19, 2015) Abductive inference in word learning and scientific discovery. Invited speech at the workshop “Communicative and Social Competencies in Early Childhood Development and Learning” Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
Mutsumi Imai (July 4-8 2016). Language acquisition and the symbol grounding problem. International Cognitive Science Summer School. International. New Bulgaria University, Sophia, Bulgaria
Mutsumi Imai (2015年8月7日) 不要輸在起跑點上? (Do you need to give a special head start to your children?) 「ことばの発達の謎を解く」中国語繁体字翻訳記念トークイベント. 誠品書店台湾大学支店 http://www.mababy.com/fun/news_cont.aspx?mid=B3ED40F193025B20
Mutsumi Imai. (2015年8月6日)嬰幼兒：天才語言科學家 (Young children are genius word learners). 「ことばの発達の謎を解く」中国語繁体字翻訳記念トークイベント. 誠品書店台湾大学支店 http://www.mababy.com/fun/news_cont.aspx?mid=B3ED40F193025B20
Mutsumi Imai (September 27, 2014). The Sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis for language acquisition and language evolution. Plenary lecture at the 1st conference of the International Association of Cognitive Semiotics, Lund University, Sweden.
Mutsumi Imai (September 23, 2014). Influence of grammatical gender on German speakers’ deductive reasoning. Invited lecture for a colloquia at the Center for the Research on Bilingualism, University of Stockholm, Sweden.
Mutsumi Imai (March 3, 2014). The Sound-Symbolism Bootstrapping Hypothesis for Language Acquisition and Language Evolution. Invited lecture, Institute of Linguistics, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan
Mutsumi Imai, (March 11, 2013). Sound symbolism: Neural representation and relation to language development. Invited Talk presented at CNSR, University of Paris, Descartes. Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères,Paris, March 11, 2013
Mutsumi Imai (November 23, 2012). The relation between language and thought: count/mass syntax and the notion of individuation. Talk presented at the research seminar at the Department of Linguistics, National Taiwan University.
Mutsumi Imai (November 23, 2012). Sound symbolism bootstraps language learning. Talk presented at the research seminar at the Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University.
Mutsumi Imai (September 13, 2012). The path from perceptual categories to conceptual categories: The role of language. Talk presented at the invited symposium. “Prediction and Creation: Basis of Model-based Decision-making Process.” The 76 Annual Meeting of the Japanese Psychological Society. Senshu University
Mutsumi Imai (July 27, 2012) Sound symbolism paves the way to language development in preverbal infants. Invited talk presented at the symposium “Interactive Brain Dynamics for Decision Making and Communication” (意思決定とコミュニケーションの脳ダイナミクスと相互作用) 包括脳合同ワークショップ 仙台国際センター
Mutsumi Imai (May 5, 2012). Evolution of verb meanings in children and L2 adult learners through reorganization of an entire semantic domain: The case of Chinese carry/hold verbs. CLDC2012 （The 6th conference on Language, Discourse and Cognition. Invited Speech. National Taiwan University
Mutsumi Imai (February 21, 2012). Bootstrapping mechanism in young children’s verb learning. Talk presented at a research seminar at the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Mutsumi Imai (February 20, 2012). Evolution of verb meanings in children and L2 adult learners through reorganization of an entire semantic domain: The case of Chinese carry/hold verbs. Talk presented at a research seminar at the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Mutsumi Imai (December 1, 2011). The Influence of Grammatical Gender on German Speakers’ Reasoning about Biological Properties of Animals. Talk presented at a colloquium at Bangor University, Department of Psychology and the Center for Bilingualism Research.
Mutsumi Imai (November 8, 2011). Bootstrapping mechanism in young children’s verb learning. Talk presented at a colloquium at Northwestern University SILC center. Evanston, IL, USA.
Mutsumi Imai (March 2, 2011). Relation between count/mass syntax and the ontological concept about individuation: From a psychological perspective. The City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Mutsumi Imai (March 10, 2011). How do nominal classification systems affect thought? : The case of classifiers and grammatical gender. Keio Global COE International Symposium, Keio University, Japan.
Mutsumi Imai (February 28, 2011) Influence of classifiers on conceptual structure in children and adults. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Mutsumi Imai (July 2, 2010 ). Evolution of verb meanings in children and L2 adult learners through reorganization of an entire semantic domain: The case of Chinese carry/hold verbs. Key note talk presented at the Reading in Chinese and related Asian Language Conference. OISE, University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Mutsumi Imai (March 24, 2010). Relation between count/mass syntax and the ontological concept about individuation: From a psychological perspective. Lecture given at a colloquium sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Canada
Mutsumi Imai (March 22, 2010). Relation between Grammatical Categories and Thought: Not Whether, but When and How. Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Canada.
Mutsumi Imai (March 26-27, 2010). The role of sound symbolism in early word learning: Invited talk for the workshop “Sound Symbolism: Challenging the Arbitrariness of Language” Emory University, Atlanta,
Mutsumi Imai (July, 2009) Novel Noun and Verb Learning in Chinese, Japanese, and English Preschoolers. Paper presented at the invited symposium “Learning nouns and verbs.” The Eleventh Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS2009). (July 4, 2009)
Mutsumi Imai (February, 2009). Role of sound symbolism in language evolution and language development: implications from a child corpus study and a brain imaging study. Invited talk given at the workshop “Universals of sound-symbolism.” Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Nijmegen, The Netherland. (February 26, 2009).
Mutsumi Imai, Sotaro Kita, Noburo Saji and Katerina Kantartzis (February, 2009). Some methodological explorations for uncovering universal sound symbolism in
the motion domain. Invited talk given at the workshop “Universals of sound-symbolism.” Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Nijmegen, The Netherland. (February 26, 2009).
Imai, M. (November, 2008). Sound iconicity bootstraps verb meaning acquisition. Talk given for the “Colloquium on Language Development and Cognition” at Bangor University, Bangor, UK. (November 20, 2008).
Imai, M. (July, 2008). Children’s use argument structure, meta-knowledge of the lexicon, and extra-linguistic contextual cues in inferring meanings of novel verbs. Invited lecture given at the 15th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Keihanna, Japan (July 30, 2008).
Imai, M. (June, 2008). Expressing motion events through mimetics: An alternative way of motion lexicalization in Japanese. Invited paper presented a workshop Human locomotion across languages. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nejimegen, the Netherland, (June 6, 2008)
Imai, M. (March, 2008). Early acquisition of nouns and verbs: the role of universal conceptual constraints, word learning biases and syntactic cues. Paper presented at the invited symposium “Continuity in language acquisition.” Sixteenth International Conference of Infant Studies. Vancouver, Canada. March 28, 2008.
Imai, M. (December, 2007). Influence of classifiers on conceptual structure in children and adults. Keynote Speech given at the 12th International Conference on the Processing of East Asia Related Languages (PEARL). National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan (December 29, 2007)
Imai, M. (December, 2006). Influence of language and culture on categories and inductive reasoning in children. Lecture given at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Zurich, Switzerland. (December 11, 2006).
Imai, M. (December, 2006). Universality and language-specificity in novel verb learning in young children: a crosslinguistic perspective. Lecture given at Max Planck Institue for Psycholinguistics. Nejimegen, Netherland. (December 5, 2006).
Imai, M. (September, 2006). Universality and language-specificy in novel verb learning in young
children:a crosslinguistic perspective. Lecture given at the “Language and Cognition Seminer.” University of Birmingham. Birmingham, UK. (July 25, 2006).
Imai, M. & Saalbach, H. (July, 2006) Influence of Language, Culture, and Universal Cognitive Constraints on the Everyday Object Concepts. Paper presented at the invited symposium “Influence of Culture and Language on Concepts and Cognitive Functions.” The 5th International Conference on Cognitive Science (ICCS), Vancouver, Canada. (July 26, 2006)
Imai, M., Nagumo, M., Kita, S., Haryu, E. & Kajikawa, S. (June, 2006). Sound iconicity bootstraps verb meaning acquisition. Paper presented at an invited symposium “What we can learn by studying infants learning a non-European language: Phonological foundations for word learning in Japanese.” XVth International Conference of Infant Studies, Kyoto, Japan (June 22, 2006)
Imai, M. (June, 2005) Does the classifier system influence our conceptual structure? Invited paper presented at the conference “Words and the World: How words capture human experience.” Lihigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA. (June 7, 2005)
Imai, M. Universal and language-specific factors influencing early word learning. (November 11, 2004) Invited talk at the Workshop on Linguistic typology and language acquisition. Japanese Association of English Studies. (日本英語学会)
Imai, M. Universal and language -specific factors influencing early verb learning. Invited Symposium at the 28th International Congress of Psychology, Beijing, China. (2004, August 13th)
Imai, M. (August, 2002) Word learning in Japanese children: Implications for theories of lexical development. Lecture given at Psychology Development, University of British Columbia.
Imai, M. Universal and language-specific constraints children use in bulding up the mental lexicon. (March, 2002). Invited lecture presented at the 9th International Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Machine Translation (TMI 2002). Keihanna, Japan.
Imai, M. (March, 2001). How Japanese children learn meanings of nouns and verbs. Lecture given at the Center for the Study of Reading and the Department of Asian Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Imai, M. (November, 2000). Does language influence our ontological concepts? Invited talk at the invited symposium ‘ Categorization in nominal classification and gender performance. ‘ The 18th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association of English Studies (日本英語学会) Konan University.
Imai, M. (August, 2000). Universality and cross-linguistic difference in the construal of individuation. Paper presented at the invited symposium ‘Language and thought’. Thinking 2000, Durham University, Durham, UK.
Imai, M., Kobayashi, I., Ozaki, T., & Furukawa, K. (July, 2000). Mechanism of lexical development. Paper presented at the 17th Machine Intelligence workshop. Bury St. Edmonds, UK.
Imai, M. (1999, July). Different kinds of similarity for classification and inductive inference. Invited Paper presented at the invited synposium ‘Nature of human concepts and categories.’ The 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Sciences. Tokyo, Japan.
Imai, M. (1997, March). The semantics of Front/Back.Left/Right: the determinants of the perspective system selection. Invited Paper presented at the International Workshop on Human Interface Technology. Aizu University, Aizu, Fukushima.
Imai, M. & Gentner, D. (1994, April). The linguistic input and the projection of noun meanings. Paper presented at a symposium at Child Language Research Forum. Stanford, California.