July 1, 2007

The 48th Meeting of Mind and Activity



Saturday, July 7, 2007

15:30 pm. - 19:00 pm.
Honkan (Main building)
Room 1555
Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo

Program

We plan to hold two sessions.

1. David Aline and Yuri Hosoda, "Students' use of prosody for understanding turn completion during their teacher's reading of a short story"

This is a data session. The data come from Japanese elementary school English classes in which the teacher is reading a classic children's book to the class. Of interest here is the students' use of prosody for understanding turn completion during long story-telling turns. The students utter some sound, produce a Japanese translation, or repeat the teacher's final word only when the teacher's utterance uses final intonation.

2. Aug Nishizaka, "Some observations from interaction at a midwife house.--3"

I focus on internal (vaginal) examinations cunducted by a midwife. I noticed three prominent things about interaction there: 1. pregnant women do not express their pain, as is very different form other types of examinations in medical settings; 2. the entire interaction appears to be oriented to problems brought up explicitly or implicitly in the preceding exchanges; and 3. the midwife explains what she is currently doing, the explanation having evaluative connotations related to those problems forming the orientational framework for the current interaction. I will focus on the third point in this session.



If anybody is interested in bringing their own data, analyses, observations, arguments, or whatever, to a next meeting to discuss together, please contact Aug Nishizaka at augnish(a)soc.meijigakuin.ac.jp.