[Corpora-List] Re: Condolences for Prof. John M. Sinclair:

[junsaku nakamura]

   The saddest news about the demise of Prof. John M. Sinclair 
reached here in Japan. We received this unexpected news with 
surprise on the 13th through one of the Japanese graduate students
studying in Birmingham University who heard it via Prof. Susan 
Hunston. We sent the news, in turn, to all the members of JAECS 
(Japan Association for English Corpus Studies) through our mailing 
list and there have been quite a few responses since then to the 
effect that we lost one of the greatest corpus linguists in the world.
Many of our members had personal contacts with him in one way or
another and were stimulated and encouraged by his academic 
achievements as well as by his warm personal character. Most of us, 
of course, learned the excitement of corpus work through his
publications. 
   We have also lost the greatest member of our association since 
he was generous enough to become an honorary member of our association
last summer when he gave us two lectures, one in Kyoto and the other 
in Tokyo. We were, in a sense, lucky to hear Prof. Sinclair give 
his talks in person but his membership has been too short for us to 
be really benefited by his originality and creativity in dealing with
language through corpora. We all hope that what he has started will be
continued by the colleagues of what might be called Birmingham School
of Corpus Linguistics as well as those of us taught by him all over 
the world since he himself cannot continue it any longer.
   In cooperation with Ritsumeikan University where his Kyoto talk 
was given, we are in the final stage of printing the official report 
of his lecture which is going to be distributed with DVD. We know 
that he has been looking forward to seeing it himself since he has 
been deeply involved in it. We are very sorry and regret that it is 
too late for him now, but for now, let us express our deepest 
heartfelt condolences to his wife, family and close friends. 

Junsaku Nakamura
President
Japan Association for English Corpus Studies