Masaki Shibata

Dr Masaki Shibata

Lecturer

School of Social Sciences

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

He is interested in exploring linguistic differences in political and media discourse between different languages. He explores linguistic options for negotiation in Japanese drawing on the Appraisal Framework (Systemic Functional Linguistics) for his doctoral thesis.

He has analysed how Japanese speakers use reported speech to enhance their own argument and suppress an opposing point of view. This study reveals differences in linguistic resources (lexico-grammatical resources) between Japanese and English languages.

Previously, he has analysed the discourse of a Japanese politician who was called "Japanese Donald Trump" by the Japan Times (media organisation). He examined how the speaker deploys evaluative languages to demonstrate his power against other politicians.

In addition to these studies, he has examined the use of reported speech in the political debate (i.e.who is cited by who and how they are cited). This study showed that the less popular the political party is, the more they cite professional voices (e.g. quoting a Supreme Court Judge).

In addition to the political language, he has also examined the media representations of whaling in Japanese and Australian news articles. This study appears to show that both Japanese and Australian media use emotive and persuasive language for or against whaling. However, they use different linguistic resources to persuade their readers. 

On top of his linguistic work, he is also a lifesaver at Tamarama beach and a competitive ocean swimmer. With his own experience of lifesaving and research expertise, he is currently exploring how beachgoers from different cultural backgrounds perceive the current existing beach safety signage in Australia. He is also investigating and developing effective ways of delivering beach safety knowledge to international students enrolled in Australian universities. 

  • Appointments
    Date Position Institution name
    2020 - ongoing Lecturer The University of Adelaide

  • Education
    Date Institution name Country Title
    2015 - 2019 The University of New South Wales Australia PhD

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2024 Shibata, M., Peden, A. E., Lawes, J. C., Wong, T. K., & Brander, R. W. (2024). What is a shore dump?: Exploring Australian university students’ beach safety knowledge and their perceptions of Australian beach safety signage. Safety Science, 170, 106366.
    DOI
    2023 Shibata, M. (2023). Exploring international beachgoers’ perceptions of safety signage on Australian beaches. Safety Science, 158, 9 pages.
    DOI Scopus2 WoS2
    2023 Shibata, M. (2023). Dialogic Positioning on Pro-Whaling Stance: A Case Study of Reported Speech in Japanese Whaling News. Japanese Studies, 43(1), 71-90.
    DOI
    2023 Shibata, M. (2023). IDENTIFYING RISKS FOR OVERSEAS-BORN BEACHGOERS AND SUGGESTING FUTURE PREVENTATIVE STRATEGIES: A QUALITATIVE STUDY BASED ON INTERVIEWS WITH 20 LIFESAVERS FROM AUSTRALIAN TOURIST BEACHES. Tourism in Marine Environments, 18(1-2), 35-46.
    DOI
    2021 Shibata, M. (2021). Reported Speech as Persuasion: A Discourse Analysis of Japanese Journalism. Japanese Studies, 41(2), 221-239.
    DOI Scopus2 WoS2
    2020 Shibata, M. (2020). Why do politicians cite others in political debates?. Journal of Language and Politics, 19(4), 604-623.
    DOI Scopus4 WoS3
    2018 Shibata, M. (2018). Why is Toru Hashimoto Called ‘a Japanese version of Trump’ or ‘Hitler’? A Linguistic Examination of Hashimoto's Attack on His Opponents. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 19(01), 23-40.
    DOI Scopus1

He started his teaching career in tertiary education in 2014. He has coordinated and taught Japanese language at Georgia State University and Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S. After moving to Australia for his doctoral study, he coordinated and taught intercultural communication and Japanese language at Macquarie University (2016-2018), Japanese language (beginner, intermediate, and advanced Japanese) at The University of Sydney (2018-2019). In 2020 he started his career at The University of Adelaide teaching Japanese language for beginner levels (Japanese 1A/Japanese 1B) and advance level (Japanese IIIA). He looks forward to supervising postgraduate students for linguistics studies (pragmatics/semiotics/critical discourse analysis). 

  • Position: Lecturer
  • Phone: 83130911
  • Email: masaki.shibata@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Kenneth Wills, floor 6
  • Org Unit: School of Social Sciences
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