About

Hajime Hoji is a professor affiliated with the University of Southern California's Department of Linguistics. His research focuses on language faculty science, aiming to understand the initial state of the language faculty through the scientific method. Hoji's work involves deducing predictions about individuals' language capabilities and conducting experiments to replicate results across different individuals and languages, demonstrating that parts of the mind related to language can be studied using methods similar to those employed in physics. He advocates for an internalist and individualist conception of the language faculty, emphasizing the hypothetico-deductive scientific method. Hoji has contributed to the field through his publications, including the book 'Language Faculty Science,' which builds upon his earlier work and explores predicted correlations of schematic asymmetries in language. His research seeks to articulate how knowledge about the language faculty can be accumulated through precise predictions and experimental validation.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Philosophy
• Statistics
• Physics
• Linguistics
• Mathematics education

Selected publications

• Prediction, Experiment, and Replication in Language Faculty Science: A Conceptual Illustration

  Studies in East Asian linguistics · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Replication: Predicted Correlations of Judgments in Japanese

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics
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• From Compatibility to Testability – Some Historical Background

  2022-10-24

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• Language Faculty Science and Physics

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Mathematics education
  • Physics
  • Psychology
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• Conclusion: Why Language Faculty Science?

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Detection of C-command Effects

  2022-10-24

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• The Key Tenets of Language Faculty Science

  2022-10-24

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Galileo’s Other Challenge

  Inference International Review of Science · 2017-08-02 · 1 citations

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  Detection of the effects of LF c-command precisely in accordance with prior predictions means that it is possible to put hypotheses about the language faculty to a rigorous empirical test.

  PublisherDOI

• Preface

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2016-03-05

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• Language Faculty Science

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-10-31 · 49 citations

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  This book explores how we can aspire to accumulate knowledge about the language faculty in line with Feynman's 'The test of all knowledge is experiment'. The two pillars of the proposed methodology for language faculty science are the internalist approach advocated by Chomsky and what Feynman calls the 'Guess-Compute-Compare' method. Taking the internalist approach, the book is concerned with the I-language of an individual speaker. Adopting the Guess-Compute-Compare method, it aims at deducing definite predictions and comparing them with experimental results. It offers a conceptual articulation of how we deduce definite predictions about the judgments of an individual speaker on the basis of universal and language-particular hypotheses and how we obtain experimental results precisely in accordance with such predictions. In pursuit of rigorous testability and reproducibility, the experimental demonstration in the book is supplemented by an accompanying website which provides the details of all the experiments discussed in the book.

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Frequent coauthors

• Daniel Plesniak

  2 shared

• Mamoru Saitō

  Nippon Steel (Japan)

  2 shared

• Sung‐Ock S. Sohn

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2 shared

• Shōichi Iwasaki

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2 shared

• Noriko Akatsuka

  2 shared

• Jill N. Beckman

  University of Iowa

  1 shared

• Yasuo Ishii

  1 shared

• S.-Y. Kuroda

  1 shared