Filled Pause Research Center

I'll be giving a presentation as part of the public lecture series sponsored by the Maebashi Chamber of Commerice and Industry (前橋商工会議所). The lecture will be held in Maebashi City on Thursday, 27 September 2007, 2-3:30pm at Maebashi Terrsa (前橋テルサ).

The title of the talk is "Silence is NOT golden" (in Japanese, 「沈黙は金ならず」).

Michael Erard (website) has just recently published a new book which gives considerable attention to um and uh and other hesitation phenomena. The title is Um … Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, And What They Mean … Here's a bit from the website:

You make thousands of verbal blunders every day. They mean more than you think.

Um... is the first book to tell you how.

The book is recommended by Geoffrey Nunberg of UC-Berkeley as well as other linguists who post regularly at (*the) Language Log.

A few months ago, when I launched my blog, The Hourglass, I wrote a post in which I took on the task of defining filled pauses. It turned out to be a rather difficult task. Anyway, now that FPRC has relaunched, it seems like this post is an appropriate article to get things rolling. Here is the post, slightly modified from the original.

After a several-year hiatus, the Filled Pause Research Center web site has been relaunched! Please come and see what's new.