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John is a PhD student at Radboud University, working on semantic variation and change in the Japonic language family. For his thesis, he is conducting fieldwork across Japan to collect data on colour vocabulary, the body part lexicon, and expressions for cutting and breaking events. While his project mainly uses the data for cross-linguistic comparative work, it also contributes to the documentation and description of the endangered Ryukyuan languages spoken in the south of Japan.
Growing up in a Limburgish-speaking family, his awareness of and interest in language and linguistic variation started at a young age. Before starting his PhD, he studied Japanese at Zuyd University Maastricht and received a Research Master's degree in Language and Communication at Tilburg University. During this time, he worked as a research assistant on several projects involving the language of perception (colour, smell and taste). In his spare time, John enjoys playing guitar, cooking—and eating!—all kinds of dishes, as well as cycling. |