HomeAbout the Filled Pause Research Center
Welcome to the Filled Pause Research Center! This web site has been in existence on different hosts since 1998. I built the web site originally as a support for my Master's dissertation studies on filled pauses in the context of second language teaching. Since then, the site has moved servers as I have changed positions and research interests. However, not too long ago I returned to a focus on the area of Hesitation Phenomena.
In addition, I have recently been awarded a Japanese government grant to study hesitation phenomena in second language learning and am obliged to share the fruits of the research project publicly. Thus, rebooting FPRC and making it, in part, the public face of the project seemed a logical step.
My present plan is to distribute information about the project as well as resources produced by the project to other researchers and those interested in hesitation phenomena in second language use. As for the site as a whole, I hope it will be an interesting reference for the public, as well as a useful resource for teachers, academics, and researchers.
The original FPRC, by the way, made a minor splash at the time (it was a Yahoo! weekly pick and later on Netscape's "What's Cool" list—remember those?) and I've met researchers later who told me the site was useful for them. The information is a little dated now, but for archival purposes, the site is available here. [Note that some links may be broken and some functions may not work. Also, the web site has a decidedly 1990s look and feel: Be prepared for some interesting colors and animated gifs...]
About the author
My name is Ralph Rose and I am a faculty member at the Waseda University Faculty of Science and Engineering in Tokyo, Japan. I work together with eleven colleagues in the Center for English Language Education (CELESE) which manages the English language program for the entire Science and Engineering student body (undergraduate and graduate schools; about 10,000 students). I have been researching filled pauses and hesitation phenomena since 1997.
Credits
The following tools and resources have been used or are being used to create and manage the FPRC web site and its contents.
- Metalsmith static site generator, running on Node.js and using several plug-ins, too numerous to list here
- Sakura Internet web hosting
- Polarr web application for basic image editing, Optimizilla for minimizing image file size, and ImageMagick for various image effects (notably, blurring)
- Wikimedia Commons and Pixnio.com for some public domain stock images
- Fontawesome for various icons
- Bibtex for citation management
- Google Forms for contact form and Google Programmable Search Engine for site search
License
Except for any materials appearing here that fall under other licenses (e.g., stock images, proceedings files), all materials on the FPRC are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license. You may re-use these materials freely as long as proper attribution is made.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.