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」). I'm planning to discuss how there is cross-cultural variation in the value of silence: In Japan, silence is important and can show respect and deference; while in western society, silence can be taken as indicative of problems or even downright rude behavior. This will fill up the first half of the talk.

In the second half, however, I'll turn to a different aspect of silence: the ways that people avoid silence in speech communication and what it means. Yes, here i'll be talking about filled pauses and other hesitation phenomena. While there hasn't been a lot of detailed work done on filled pauses in Japanese, there is enough to be be able to give some cross-linguistic comparison.

I'm looking forward to giving this talk quite a bit, but there's one big pressure: They want me to give the talk in Japanese. Frankly, it'll be the first time I've given a public lecture in Japanese---let alone for 90 minutes. So I'm getting a little anxious about it.

Anyway, if you're in the area, ,-) drop in for a listen. Otherwise, please wish me luck from afar.