Academic biography

Ryoko Sasamoto, BA, MPhil, PhD, is Associate Professor in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies (SALIS), and a member of Centre for Translation and Textual Studies (CTTS). Her research expertise is in the interdisciplinary area, working across different disciplines such as Pragmatics, Audiovisual Translation, Reception Studies, and Linguistics. She is particularly interested in communication of emotions using onomatopoeia, emoji and reaction GIFs, as well as pragmatics of AVT with a focus on telop and fansubbing. Her PhD supervision covers a range of related research areas, including an eye-tracking study of onomatopoeia in translated manga, the teaching of Kanji, developing students¡¯ pragmatic competence in Japanese, the ethics and trust issues with translators in Japan, the use of multimodal artwork in language classroom, and research into fansubbing community in Thailand and China. The selected publication includes: Onomatopoeia: A Relevance-based Eye-Tracking Study of Digital Manga (co-authored, Journal of Pragmatics, 2021), The ¡®hookability¡¯ of multimodal impact captions A mixed-methods exploratory study (co-authored, Translation, Cognition and & Behaviour, 2021), Relevance, style and multimodality: Typographical Features as Stylistic Devices (co-authored, In: Relevance Theory and Figuration. John Benjamins, 2020), Onomatopoeia and Relevance: Communication of Impressions via Sound (Palgrave 2019), Contemporary Global Media Circulation based on Fan Translation: A particular case of Thai Fansubbing (co-authored, Discourse, Context and Media 2019), Argumentation, relevance theory and persuasion: An Analysis of onomatopoeia in Japanese publications using manga stylistics (International Review of Pragmatics, 2018), Telop, Affect, and Media Design: A Multimodal Analysis of Japanese TV Programs (Television and New Media 2017), and Onomatopoeia - Showing-word or Saying-word? Relevance Theory, lexis, and communication of impressions (Lingua 2016).

Dr Sasamoto would welcome applications from prospective PhD students interested in: communication of impressions and emotions (e.g. onomatopoeia, expressives, emoji, reaction GIFs), multimodal discourse (e.g. manga, anime, and text on screen), and Audiovisual Translation (fansubbing and creative titling). She is particularly interested in working with students who wish to adopt Relevance-theoretic approaches in their projects.