HARUKA SAKAI

Last Updated :2026/05/14

Affiliations, Positions
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Assistant Professor
E-mail
hasakaihiroshima-u.ac.jp
Self-introduction
Based on perspectives from sociolinguistics and interaction analysis, I explore how co-presence is achieved through social interaction and how it shapes vernacular public space in a rural community. 

Basic Information

Major Professional Backgrounds

  • 2025/04/01, Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Assistant Professor
  • 2023/04, 2025/03, Tokyo International University, Japanese Language Institute, Lecturer
  • 2022/10, 2023/03, University of Tsukuba, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Postdoctoral researcher

Educational Backgrounds

  • University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics, Japan, 2017/04, 2022/09
  • University of Tsukuba, School of Humanities and Culture, College of Japanese Language and Culture, Japan, 2013/04, 2017/03

Academic Degrees

  • Doctor of linguistics, University of Tsukuba
  • Master of linguistics, University of Tsukuba

Research Fields

  • Humanities;Linguistics;Linguistics
  • Humanities;Cultural anthropology;Cultural anthropology
  • Social sciences;Sociology;Sociology

Research Keywords

  • Social Interaction
  • Rural Community
  • Small Talk

Affiliated Academic Societies

  • The Society for Japanese Language Proficiency and Education, 2024
  • International Pragmatics Association, 2024
  • Japan Association of Regional and Community Studies, 2023
  • Association for Japanese Language Education, 2022
  • Japanese Association of Qualitative Psychology, 2021
  • Japanese Teaching Society of Japan, 2019
  • The Japanese Association of Sociolinguistic Sciences., 2018

Educational Activity

Course in Charge

  1. 2026, Undergraduate Education, 2Term, Fundamentals of Teaching Japanese as a Second Language
  2. 2026, Undergraduate Education, 3Term, Language Education and Social Studies
  3. 2026, Undergraduate Education, Second Semester, Pre-service Education in Japanese as a Second Language
  4. 2026, Undergraduate Education, First Semester, Specific Study of Japanese as a Second Language I
  5. 2026, Undergraduate Education, Second Semester, Specific Study of Japanese as a Second Language II
  6. 2026, Undergraduate Education, Second Semester, Graduation Thesis
  7. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , First Semester, Research Methods in Teaching Japanese as a Second Language
  8. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , Second Semester, Research Project on Teaching Japanese as a Second Language
  9. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , 2Term, Advanced Studies in Multicultural Society
  10. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , 3Term, Seminar in Multicultural Society
  11. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , Second Semester, Practicum in Teaching Japanese as a Second Language
  12. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , First Semester, Tutorial Seminar in Special Topics
  13. 2026, Graduate Education (Master's Program) , Second Semester, Tutorial Seminar in Special Topics

Research Activities

Academic Papers

  1. ★, Documenting Rural Gatherings in Aging Japan: Social Context and Language Use in Interaction at a Mobile Supermarket, the Proceedings of LREC 2026 Workshop on Social Context (SoCon) and Integrating NLP and Psychology to Study Social Interactions (NLPSI), 202605
  2. Marginalized People and Places in a Company Town: A Case Study of Mutual-Assistance Community Hubs in Hitachi City, The Program of 2nd Serial Research Meeting of Japan Association of Regional and Community Studies in 2025, 11-19, 202512
  3. ★, Research Design Based on Understanding Activities in the Field:Video Recording Targeting Shopping Interaction in a Mobile Supermarket, The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 28(1), 250-261, 202509
  4. Shaping Shouten 'Small Grocery Shop' as a Place of Hospitality: Third-Party Participation in Remedial Work Within Hearable Space (in press), East Asian Pragmatics, 2025
  5. Noda-Sentence in University Student Reports Based on Quantitative Research, Journal of Japanese Language Proficiency and Education, 202510
  6. Complex Sentence Use of CLD Children in Apology Discourse : Focusing on Grammatical Constraints in Organizing Discourse Structures, Journal of Japanese Language Proficiency and Education, 202510
  7. ★, Predictability of Encounter and Greeting Practices in Private Grocery Stores, Japanese Journal of Qualitative Psychology, 23(Special), S112-S118, 2024
  8. A Discourse Analytic Study of Conversations in Local Grocery Stores, Doctoral Dissertation in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 202209
  9. ★, Language Use of a Salesclerk and Regular Customers in a Neighborhood Grocery Store: Focusing on Small Talk Following Greetings, The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 25(1), 166-181, 202209
  10. Online Casual Conversations among University Students in the Early Days of the Pandemic: The Emergence of Bonding through Interaction, The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 25(1), 102-117, 202209
  11. The Potential of Language Use Analysis in Sports Coaching: Focusing on "Tempo" and "Rhythm" in Football (Soccer), Japanese Journal of Qualitative Psychology, 20(Special), S97-S104, 2021
  12. Problems of students' reports focused on sentence-final modality forms: A corpus-based study of their actual use, kokugokakyouiku, 88(0), 21-29, 202009
  13. A Corpus Study into the Repetitive Use of Adversative Conjunctions, 139-159, 201703

Publications such as books

  1. 2023/12/14, Navigating Friendships in Interaction: Discursive and Ethnographic Perspectives, Routledge, 2023, 2023, Scholarly Book, Contributor, en, Cade Bushnell; Stephen J. Moody, 9781003381426, 280

Invited Lecture, Oral Presentation, Poster Presentation

  1. Negotiating Material-Mediated Object Transfers: Cash Tray-Body Coordination in Mobile Supermarket Transactions, Haruka Sakai, Mao Chida, the special interest group on Spoken Language Understanding and Dialogue processing (SIG-SLUD),the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 2026/03/04, Without Invitation, Japanese
  2. Growing Students into Kanji Writers: Interaction in Online Japanese Lessons for Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) Children, Haruka Sakai, 19th International Pragmatics Conference, 2025/06/23, Without Invitation, English, International Pragmatics Association, Brisbane, Australia
  3. Interaction between the Rural Elderly at a Mobile Supermarket: The Organization of Co-presence during Examining Items, Haruka Sakai Rui Sakaida, 2024/09/10
  4. Extending Closings Through See-off Practices in Face-to-Face Apparel Service Encounter, Haruka Sakai, 2024/02/29
  5. The Function of "Background" in Online Casual Conversation: An Interactional Analysis of the Construction of Shared "Space", Haruka Sakai; Ayumi Inouchi, Technical Committee on Human Communication Science (HCS) , The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), 2020/08/22

Awards

  1. 2023/03, Best Dissertation Award, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba
  2. 2022/03, Presentation Award, The Japanese Association of Sociolinguistic Sciences

External Funds

Acceptance Results of Competitive Funds

  1. PRESTO, JST Strategic Basic Research Programs, Creating Human-Centered Interaction to Solve Social Issues, Exploring Everyday Interactional Support for Older Adults, 2025/10, 2029/03
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  2. Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, A Systematic Study of Mobile Supermarket Communication: Linguistic Structure, Interaction, and Social Relationships, 2025/04, 2029/03
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  3. Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, 2022/06, 2027/03
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  4. 2022/04/01, 2026/03/31
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  5. 2023/04, 2024/03
  6. 2021/10, 2022/03