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Olga Tsuneko Yokoyama (Russian Ольга Борисовна Йокояма, September 11, 1942) is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). She is most known for her research in Slavic philology, functionalist constraints in the Syntax of Russian and more specifically, for developing a Model for Communicational Competence to account for Russian intonation and word order.

Life
In 1970 she received her D.D.S. degree from Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan. She then she decided to change her career and received a training in Slavic Linguistics and Literature, first receiving her M.A. degree from University of Illinois in 1973. In 1973 she completed another M.A. program, now in Harvard University, where she later received her Ph. D. in 1979.

Yokoyama then stayed in her Alma Mater to start her career as an educator. After working in Harvard for 16 years she then moved to California where she started as a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at UCLA, but soon became a professor of Applied Linguistic there. In 2012, she was awarded a title of Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at UCLA.

She is a granddaughter (on her mother's side) of a Russian 19th century merchant Vasilij Lavrovich Zhernakov (Василий Лаврович Жернаков) who lived in Tumen, Siberia. In pursuit of the family history she returned to Tumen archieves where she discovered 16 years of correspondence between members of the Zhernakov family. Being a linguist she saw value in those artifacts and initiated a closer research into the sociological and cultural aspects of the language in those letters. Years of research led to publishing two major works "Russian Peasant Letters: Texts and Contexts." and "Russian Peasant Letters: Life and Times of a 19th-Century Family".

Yokoyama has three children. One of her sons, Sergej studied finances in Switzerland. He defended his bachelor thesis on the advent of capitalism in Russian after the abolition of serfdom and made an example of his great grandfather Vasilij Lavrovich Zhernakov who was originally a pheasant in Vjatskaja province and migrated toTyumen with other merchants.

Discourse and Word Order
The book “Discourse and Word Order” researches the relations between the word order in Russian sentences and intonation. Yokoyama applied the pragmatics to establish a foundation for a systematized and comprehensive framework of the syntactic analysis of Russian Word Order and creates the Framework of Communicational Competence allowed her to connect the speaker’s  state of knowledge to the word order and intonation patterns they apply.

In her research, Yokoyama addressed the not yet solved question of Russian word order: functionality of “verb-initial” sentences and their intonation; the distinction between questions with rising and falling intonation; the reasoning behind sentential stress in different kinds of questions.

Model of Communicational Competence
The Model of Cummunicational Competence is a framework that Yokoyama developed to account for different word order patterns in so called “free” word order languages.

Using a Venn diagram Yokoyama differentiates four main knowledge areas: the total knowledge of the speaker (A); the total knowledge of the addressee (B); the area of present concern of the speaker (Ca); and the area of present concern of the addressee (Cb). Communication occurs only when two of these knowledge area intersect, i.e. the area of present concern of the speaker and the area of the present concern of the addressee (Ca∩Cb). In addition to that, she includes four other knowledge areas: an area of knowledge that is of current concern to the speaker but unknown to the addressee (A∩(Ca-B)); an area known to both the speaker and the addressee but of current concern only to the speaker (Ca∩(B-Cb)); an area known to both the speaker and the addressee but of current concern to only the addressee (Cb∩(A-Ca); and area of current concern to the addressee that is unknown to the speaker (B∩(Cb-A)).

Within this classification Yokoyama further places the following seven types of knowledge.

Five informational: E.g. the sentence "I know Jane Smith." implies that the speaker has a referential knowledge of the specific Jane Smith, who may be their colleague. E.g. the sentence "Jane went to Paris." implies that the speaker has a propositional knowledge that "someone went somewhere". E.g. the sentence ''"Jane went somewhere." i''mplies that the speaker possess the specificational knowledge that someone who went somewhere is Jane, but doesn't have the specification knowledge of the place where Jane went. E.g. the sentence "Jane went somewhere." implies that the speaker has the existential knowledge of some place where Jane went but no specificational knowledge of what that place might be E.g. the sentence "Why didn't Jane call me today?" implies that the speaker possesses the predicational knosledge that something must have happened to Jane.
 * referential (the ability to connect the linguistic representation of the person with the real person; obligatory implies only predicational knowledge and existential knowledge of the referent).
 * propositional (knowledge that someone did something; implies predicational knowledge and existential knowledge of the terms)
 * specificational (enables the speaker replace the unspecified term with a specific person and action; obligatory implies only predicational knowledge and existential knowledge of the terms, but also normally propositional knowledge and referential knowledge of the terms)
 * existential (assumption that that person or a place do exist; however there is no specificational knowledge of this person or a place)
 * predicational (assumption that an even took place, implies referential knowledge of the terms)

Two metinformational: E.g. the sentence "I know Jane Smith" implies that the code "Jane Smith" was assigned to this person by the community of speakers. E.g. the question "Do you remember my colleague, Jane Smith?" clarifies if the addressee possesses the knowledge of the discourse situation.
 * knowledge of the language code (understanding the meaning of the words in a language)
 * knowledge of the discourse situation

Thus, all Russian sentences imply a specific kind of knowledge and this governs the word order in the utterance.

Word Order and Intonation
In her research Yokoyama referered to the system of intonational contours developed by Elena A. Bryzgunova (Брызунова, Елена Андреевна) - a Russian linguist who studied Russian speech in regard of the connection between syntax, lexicon, phonetics, intonation and situation.

According to Yokoyama, both word order and intonation can account for metinformational knowledge, i.e. speaker’s knowledge of the discourse situation. Basing on Bryzgunova’s taxonomy of intonational contours, Yokoyama distinguishes Type I and Type II intonation patterns.

In Type I sentences, the new information is located in sentence-final position and it is not marked with a sentential stress. In Type II sentences, the new information is located in non-sentence-final position and it is marked with a sentential stress.

Russian Peasant Letters
This is a collection of letters written by members of one family, the Zhernakovs. Most of the letters were addressed to Vasiliy Zhernakov, who in 1881, at the age of 17, left home, in the former Vyatka Province, for Siberia to earn money and eventually became a successful merchant and philanthropist. This is a valuable source for studying the language and economic conditions of common people in Russian in late 19th century. These letters are especially valuable because they represent the dialectal speech of the authors typical of the Vyatka region.

Selected publications
Yokoyama closely worked with such linguists as Susumu Kuno on Functional Analysis in Syntax and Semantics and together with Brent Vine translated some of the Roman Jakobson's works.

Articles

 * 1975a "Personal or reflexive? - a functional analysis", in S. Kuno (ed.), Harvard Studies in Syntax and Semantics I, 75-112. Harvard University Linguistics Department: Cambridge, MA.
 * 1980a "Studies in Russian Functional Syntax", in S. Kuno (ed.), Harvard Studies in Syntax and Semantics III, 451-778. Harvard University Linguistics Department: Cambridge, MA.
 * 1982a 'Russian word order and Empathy,' in Papers from the Eighteenth Regional Meeting, 521-9. Chicago Linguistic Society: Chicago.
 * 1985 "A diversified approach to Russian word order", in R.D. Brecht & M.S. Flier (eds.), Issues in Russian Morphosyntax, 187-208. Slavica: Columbus, OH.
 * 1988a "Disbelief, lies, and manipulations in a Transactional Discourse Model", in H. Parret (ed.), Rhetoric of Lying (Argumentation 2.1): 131-49.
 * 2010b (with B. Vine) "PIE *(h1)euh1-dh- ‘excrete liquid' and Russian dialectal udut (3 pl.)". In T.M. Nikolaeva (ed.), Issledovanija po lingvistike i semiotike, 191-197. Jazyki slavjanskix kul'tur: Moscow.

Book chapters

 * 1980a "Studies in Russian Functional Syntax", in S. Kuno (ed.), Harvard Studies in Syntax and Semantics III, 451-778. Harvard University Linguistics Department: Cambridge, MA.
 * 2001a "Proverbs", in G. Gerhart & E. Boyle (eds.), The Russian Context, 297-351. Slavica: Bloomington, IN.
 * 2001b "Science as Language", in G. Gerhart & E. Boyle (eds.), The Russian Context, 593-618. Slavica: Bloomington, IN.

Translations

 * 1975b "On information-bearing structure of the sentence"; by Vilém Mathesius, (O tak zvaném aktuálním členění vĕty), Slovo a slovesnost 5, 171-4, Prague, 1939. In S. Kuno (ed.) Harvard Studies in Syntax and Semantics I, 467-80. Harvard University Linguistics Department: Cambridge, MA.
 * 1984a (with B. Vine) "Morphological Observations on Slavic Declension", by Roman Jakobson, "Morfologičeskie nabljudenija nad slavjanskim skloneniem". In Roman Jakobson, Russian and Slavic Grammar: Studies l931-81, L.R. Waugh & M. Halle (eds.), 105-133. Mouton Publishers: New York.
 * 1984b (with B. Vine) "Contribution to the General Theory of Case", by Roman Jakobson, "Beitrag sur allgemeinen Kasuslehre: Gesamtbedeutung der russischen Kasus". In Roman Jakobson, Russian and Slavic Grammar: Studies 1931-81, L.R. Waugh & M. Halle (eds.), 59-103. Mouton Publishers: New York.
 * 1984c (with B. Vine) "Structure of the Russian Verb" by Roman Jakobson, "Zur Struktur des russischen Verbums". In Roman Jakobson, Russian and Slavic Grammar: Studies 1931-81, L.R. Waugh & M. Halle (eds.), 1-14. Mouton Publishers: New York

Books

 * Yokoyama, Olga T. 1987. Discourse and Word Order. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
 * Yokoyama, Olga T. 2008. Russian Peasant Letters: Texts and Contexts. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
 * Yokoyama, Olga T. 2010. Russian Peasant Letters: Life and Times of a 19th-Century Family. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.