Summary

In present-day research, digital data and databases play a fundamental role. The construction of large-scale databases is progressing rapidly in many fields.
LAJD (Linguistic Atlas of Japan Database) and DDJ (Database of Discourse in Japanese Dialects) are large-scale digital databases for dialectology that the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics has been building. LAJDB is a digitized version of the original survey data and all the information presented on the linguistic maps of LAJ (Linguistic Atlas of Japan, published 1966-1974), which covered 2400 localities in all areas of Japan. DDJD contains acoustic and written data from Japanese dialect discourses collected in all prefectures of Japan. There is also GAJ (Grammar Atlas of Japanese Dialects, published 1989-2006), which covers 807 localities throughout Japan. The GAJ data were in electronic form from the beginning.
These large-scale dialectal survey data have yet to be fully utilized in Japanese dialectological research. To make full use of them and bring out their potential, the cooperation of dialectologists with various specialties is essential.
The participants in this project include researchers from different fields such as quantitative dialectology, historical dialectology, linguistic geography and dialect discourse research. The researchers share the same data and analyze them from different points of view in a cooperative research framework aimed at providing new insights into dialects, developing new methods of dialect study and building up the requisite know-how for using such large-scale dialect data.
This project should also make valuable contributions to training in dialectology by providing the know-how for efficient use of large-scale dialect data and by suggesting further research possibilities.