KessEmeritus Chair in Japan and Asia-Pacific Relations and Professor Emeritus (linguistics) Dr. Joseph Kess has been chosen as one of four Canadians to receive Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun—the highest honour bestowed by Japan on foreign nationals.
In announcing this honour in Tokyo, His Excellency Mr. Hirofumi Nakasone, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Japan, praised “the contributions of Dr. Joseph F. Kess to greater understanding of Japan [which] have come through all facets of his professional career. His landmark books on Japanese psycholinguistics, his acknowledged excellence as a teacher and his leadership at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at the University of Victoria stand out among his many accomplishments that have served to increase awareness and knowledge about Japan in Canada.”
“My years at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives were probably the most meaningful of my career at UVic in trying to achieve something for us on the larger world scene,” says Kess. “Reminding Canada of its necessary commitment to Asia in general, and Japan specifically, is something that CAPI does well, and it’s gratifying to know that the Japanese government has recognized us in this way.”
Kess is widely recognized as a leading scholar of psycholinguistics, the study of the native and learned mechanisms that enable humans to acquire, use and understand language. His primary theoretical interests have focused on psycholinguistic aspects of language processing and language performance. His research interests also encompass sociolinguistics and the relationships among language, ethnicity and the discourse of identity. He has worked on a variety of languages including Tagalog and other Philippine languages; Japanese in Japan and Hawaii; Motu and Kuanuan from Papua New Guinea; Slovene in the former Yugoslavia; and Ahousaht and Haida in BC.
A fellow of the RSC (Royal Society of Canada), Kess is also a recipient of the Faculty of Humanities Award for Teaching Excellence. He has written, co-authored or co-edited 14 books, more than two dozen book chapters and over 200 articles, reviews and other scholarly contributions.
The Consul General of Japan will bestow upon Kess the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, at a ceremony in Vancouver on Dec. 10.
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