A lecture by Professor Kazuko Miyake, Faculty of Literature, Toyo University, entitled "Future of Social Communication in the Mobile Era," was held on 23 January 2012. The points raised in the lecture included the following: the progress of IT on an individual level is changing the nature of communication that has been carried out between people so far, and accordingly, communication strategies have also changed, and the important role emoji (emoticons, a unique Japanese form) plays. Questions and comments centered on whether or not this was happening only in a particular demographic group. This lecture provided an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties of sociolinguistics, a research field that tries to capture the changes in languages.

(Tatsuro Maeda)

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