Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: ��Between Laughter and Tears�: The Difficulty of Black Cosmopolitanism in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men and Tell My Horse� rescues Hurston criticism from the confines of folk regionalism and geographic immobility. Examining the tension between regionalism and cosmopolitanism in Hurston�s texts, Dunbar�s talk details Hurston�s attempts to create herself as both �outsider� ethnographer (cosmopolitan) and �insider� black (regional) within the transnational Caribbean space of her ethnography. This presenter ultimately argues that Hurston�s writing illuminates the difficulties of black cosmopolitanism, especially when it attempts to account for local articulations of blackness.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Presidential press conference is an enduring and legitimate form for public interrogations and political accountability. It is a prestigious arena for journalists to display their professional ways of asking questions. Interaction in the context of press conferences regulates and symbolizes relations of power, autonomy and affiliation between the President and the journalists. A general argument in this paper is that we have to study not only the design of questions, but different aspects of sequences of interaction in order to understand the roles and relations established in press conferences. The paper investigates two types of sequences of interaction in which roles and relations are brought to its head: (1) Interruptions, (2) Jokes and laughter. The study is based on Conversation Analysis and the data encompasses 19 solo press conferences held by George W Bush from 2005-2007. The study shows that 86 percent of all (151) the interruptions are made by the President. This indicates a general pattern of dominance, but also that the President uses interruptions as a resource in a number of situations. The analysis shows how the President uses interruptions in order to control the allocation of turns, disagree and reject criticism, demonstrate certainty and conviction, and makes joke with the journalists. In fact, sequences of jokes and laughter occur quite frequently. Those sequences strengthen the interactive power of the President, and limit the interrogative resources of the journalists. The sequences of jokes and laughter also create affiliations, questioning the expected neutrality and non-alignment of journalism.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, we start from the assumption that laughter is a universal of humans, in the sense that its physical manifestation is identical for all the people in the world, but it is triggered by culturally-dependant stimuli.
The excerpts we will use are taken from naturally occurring face-to-face interactions and from phone calls, and they are instances of three types of small talk: “keep in touch” small talk, “before business talk” small talk, and “transitional” small talk.
Our focus is on how laughter is triggered without the speaker actually inviting laughter. Thus, our interest is to see if the speaker, in his utterance, marked in any way that he expected a reaction (laughter included) from his receiver. We will distinguish between overt marking of laughable units (within-speech laughter, independent laughter at the end of the utterance), by means of which the speaker invites laughter, and covert marking of laughable units, i.e. volunteered laughter is produced.
Another issue of interest will be to see whether laughter is used in small talk in order to transmit the speaker that (s)he could go on with the topic or, on the contrary, stop. This means that speakers may overtly mark their utterance as laughable, thus inviting their audience to share laughter. Some other times, there are situations when laughter may not be replied positively.

Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Background and Aims: We presented definitions of “spontaneous smile” and “spontaneous laugh( smile accompanied by vocal sounds ) ” and fundamental data in the article ( Kawakami et al.,2005,Early Human Development ). Takai( 2005 ) presented the data from an intensive longitudinal case study in Japanese. Takai found that “spontaneous smiles” were observed even in the 6th month and “spontaneous laughs” were observed even in the first month. And we will show the data from another intensive case study( Kawakami et al., in preparation ). The aims of this poster presentation are to integrate the data of two intensive longitudinal case studies on “spontaneous smile” and “spontaneous laugh”.
Methods: Two mothers recorded “spontaneous smile” and “spontaneous laugh” in their male infants during the first 6-months by digital video cameras. The first mother recorded over 94 days( total recording time was 18 hours 4 minutes and 52 seconds ). We analyzed the videos by our definitions of “spontaneous smile” and “spontaneous laugh”. One hundred and 29 “spontaneous smiles” and five “spontaneous laughs” were observed. The second mother recorded over 171 days( total recording time was 329 hours 25 minutes and 35 seconds ). Five hundred and 65 “spontaneous smiles” and fifteen “spontaneous laughs” were observed.
Key Results: Both infants showed “spontaneous smiles” even in the 6th month. In the first two months, half of “spontaneous smiles” were unilateral, but they changed into bilateral. “Spontaneous laughs” were observed from the first month in both cases. Excepting only one, “spontaneous laughs” were bilateral. The durations of “spontaneous laugh” were longer than those of “spontaneous smile”. We defined “the period of more than 7 spontaneous smiles in 7 minutes” as “Smile bursts”. “Smile bursts” were observed 7 times in the first infant and twice in the second infant.
Conclusions: The rise of bilateral smiling might suggest the development of a more mature behavioral pattern and the development of more mature cerebral control over the behaviors. “Spontaneous smile” and “spontaneous laugh” should be different behaviors from the beginning. By analyses of the brain at the time of “Smile bursts”, we will know the mechanisms of developmental changes in “spontaneous smiles”.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores comedy as a form of public discourse within democratic Athens through an examination of Aristophanic comedy and Platonic political philosophy.