Research Interest          

My research interest is interdisciplinary.  I am greatly mesmerised by the integrated relationship between people and language. I believe language is not just purely codes or algorithms but semiotics stemming from our abundant cognitive abilities and sociocultural factors. 

language and cognition 

The area of linguistics that interests me most is a century-old topic— linguistic relativity which studies how language affects thought and world view of its speakers. I approach this issue by focusing on event representations of bilinguals. 
I ask questions like: Does learning an L2 change the way we think? If it does, to what extent and in what domains does it happen? I take psycholinguistic approaches to these questions by designing experiments and statistically analysing data. 


second language acquisition 

My major interest in SLA lies in one specific type of cross-linguistic transfer–conceptual transfer, in which L2 learners are influenced by their L1 conceptual representations when learning an L2 with different conceptual representations. I am especially fascinated with exploring how learners reconceptualise their L1 concepts in L2 learning. 

Presentations

Qu, J., & Miwa, K. (April 2025).  Cross-linguistic differences in the recognition memory of event roles. The 5th International Conference on Theoretical East Asian Psycholinguistics, Waseda University, Japan. 

Qu, J., & Miwa, K. (October, 2023). Cross-linguistic differences in recognition memory: Encoding of event roles in Japanese and English (online). Words in the World International Conference 2023, University of Alberta, Canada. 


Qu, J., & Miwa, K. (August, 2023). Conceptualisation of event roles in a second language: Effects of L1, L2 word frequencies, and L2 proficiency [Oral presentation]. 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Qu, J., & Miwa, K. (October, 2022). Conceptualisation of event roles: A cross-language
comparison [Poster presentation]. International Conference on the Mental Lexicon 2022,
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Qu, J. (April, 2021). Conceptual Transfer in L2 Motion Events by Japanese and Chinese Learners of English. Presented at the 13th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Warsaw, Poland.

Qu, J. (August, 2019). How Japanese and Chinese learners of English found the frog: An SLA study on rhetorical style of motion events. Presented at the 15th International Conference of Cognitive Linguistics. Nishinomiya, Japan. 









Invited Talks

  • 17 June, 2024

A Lecture on the Interface of Language and Thought, Psycholinguistics II, Department of English Education, Nagoya University, Japan.  

  • 7th June, 2023

A Small Talk on How to Launch Studies on Pavlovia via PsychoPy,  Psycholinguistics II, Department of English Education, Nagoya University, Japan.  

  • 17th November, 2021

A Lecture on Cross-cultural Communications and International Understanding, Katsuyama High School, Maniwa, Japan. 



Publications

Qu, J., & Miwa. K. (2025). Conceptualisation of event roles in L1 and L2 by Japanese learners of          English: The effect of perspectives of event construal on recognition memory. Psychological Research, 89(6), Article 158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02190-5 


Qu, J., & Miwa, K. (2024). Conceptualisation of event roles in L1 and L2 by Japanese learners of English: A cross-linguistic comparison of perspectives of event construal. Cognitive Linguistics, 35(4), 547–577. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0127

Qu, J. (2024). Motion events in L2 narratives by Japanese and Chinese learners of English.
Second Language, 23, 101–128. https://doi.org/10.11431/secondlanguage.23.0_101

Qu, J. (2023). New Directions in Linguistic Relativity Research. Humanities Forum,
Nagoya University, 6, 53–69. https://doi.org/10.18999/humfnu.6.53

Research Grants

  • 科研費 (August, 2025 – March, 2027) Kaken Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up