Predicting EFL Learners’ Susceptibility to Various Disfluency Types Based on Gender and Age

The aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship of production of speech disfluencies in EFL learners based on gender and age through regression modeling. Gender and age have been examined to influence the production of disfluencies in both native and nonnative speakers so it’s an important issue since fluency and disfluency are crucial aspects of language learning, however, the influence of age and gender on disfluency remains a controversial issue with studies often producing conflicting results with one another. Methods. This study took a new approach to this subject as we produced regression models which can predict the likelihood of production of each disfluency type based on speakers’ age and gender. In order to do this 40 Iranian advanced EFL learners (20 male, 20 female) in four age groups (youth 19–24, young adults 25–30, adults 31–44, and older adults 45+) took part in the study. Later semi-structured interviews with a variety of questions regarding different topics were conducted and participants’ responses were first recorded and then transcribed. The frequency of occurrence of each disfluency type in participants’ speech samples formed our data. This data was then used for our regression analysis. Results. Our findings indicated that, while filled pauses are the most frequently produced disfluency in both genders and all age groups, female speakers are more likely to produce hesitations in their speech compared to male speakers. We also found out that, older adults are less likely to produce filled pauses in their speech compared to younger speakers. With Further analyses, we also investigated the likelihood of producing certain disfluency types over other ones based on age and gender and how this may help instructors. Conclusions. Based on our findings, it can be concluded that all six types of disfluencies are produced by the Iranian EFL learners. Also, we found that, filled pauses, hesitations, and repetitions are by far the most frequently produced disfluency types by Iranian EFL learners, respectively.

Proactive language control during bilingual sentence production

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: While evidence for proactive language control processes has been found during single word production, very little and conflicting evidence has been observed for such control processes during sentence production. So, the main goal of this study was to investigate whether proactive language control can occur during sentence production. Design/methodology/approach: To investigate proactive language control during sentence production, we relied on a description task in single and mixed language blocks. Data and analysis: Mixing costs and the reversed language dominance effect of language intrusions and filled pauses were used to examine proactive language control. Findings/conclusions: Evidence for proactive language control during sentence production came from the mixing cost effect observed with both language intrusions and filled pauses. Whereas no reversed language dominance effect was observed in mixed language blocks, a significant difference in language pattern was observed between single and mixed language blocks, indicating that proactive language control of the first language might be implemented in mixed language blocks during sentence production. Originality: Unlike the vast majority of studies investigating language control, this study relied on sentence production instead of single word production. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine filled pauses to gain insight into language control. Significance/implications: These data indicate that proactive language control can be implemented during bilingual sentence production.

Speech Disfluencies in Simultaneous Interpretations of Spontaneous and Non-Spontaneous Speeches

The present paper is an attempt to examine speech disfluencies in simultaneous interpretations of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speeches from English into Arabic. It focuses on the difference between the rate of disfluencies in renditions of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speeches. The data were collected from authentic sessions of professional interpreters from English into Arabic. The speeches and interpretations were transcribed. The data was divided into two different categories: ‘spontaneous source speeches and their renditions’ and ‘non-spontaneous speeches and their renditions’. Disfluencies in the source and target texts were analyzed and compared. The results of the analysis showed that the rate of disfluencies in spontaneous speeches is significantly higher than the renditions of non-spontaneous speeches. The analysis also demonstrated that silent pauses are the most frequent disfluency in both categories of interpretations, followed by prolongations and filled pauses.

Fillers and Their Functions in Emma Watson’s Speech

Fillers are utterances or phrases that are used in speaking to fill in the moment of silence to connect thoughts or ideas. This paper investigated the types and functions of fillers used by Emma Watson in her speeches. The researchers formulated two questions to be resolved. First, what are the types of fillers used in Emma Watson’s speeches? Second, what are the functions of filler words in the speeches? Data, consisting of 93 occurrences of fillers, were collected from Emma Watson’s speech scripts in three videos. To solve the research questions, the researchers used the descriptive qualitative approach and discourse analysis. Results showed that Watson used two types of fillers, namely unlexicalized filled pauses (71 occurrences) and lexical filled pauses (22 occurrences) and five functions of fillers, namely hesitating, empathizing, mitigating, editing term and time-creating devices. AbstrakFiller atau kata pengisi merupakan ujaran atau frase yang digunakan dalam jeda percakapan untuk menghubungkan gagasan atau ide berikutnya. Makalah ini menyelidiki jenis dan fungsi kata pengisi yang digunakan oleh Emma Watson dalam pidatonya. Para peneliti merumuskan dua permasalahan. Pertama, apa jenis kata pengisi yang digunakan dalam pidato Emma Watson? Kedua, apa fungsi dari kata pengisi dalam pidato Emma Watson? Data, yang terdiri atas 93 kata pengisi, dikumpulkan dari tiga naskah video pidato Emma Watson. Untuk menjawab kedua permasalahan dalam studi ini, para peneliti menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif dan analisis wacana. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa Watson menggunakan dua jenis kata pengisi, yaitu jeda terisi non-leksikal (71 kali) dan jeda terisi leksikal (22 kali), serta lima fungsi kata pengisi, yaitu sebagai perangkat keragu-raguan, berempati, mengurangi efek, memperbaiki istilah, dan menambah waktu.

A Corpus-based Study of the Impact of Directionality on EnglishChinese Simultaneous Interpreting

This PhD thesis investigates the impact of directionality on English<>Chinese simultaneous interpreting (SI) based on a purposely built spoken corpus. The study examines disfluencies (filled pauses and repetitions) and repairs from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. An expert-novice paradigm is also adopted with the aim of determining if directionality influences these two different groups. The quantitative analyses look at the frequency of filled pauses and repetitions, as well as the frequency of different types of repairs (including appropriateness repairs, different repairs, error repairs, mid-articulatory repairs and repair failures) and the proportion of each category of disfluencies and repairs. The aims are to determine if directionality influences SI fluency and to provide a holistic view of the extent to which directionality influences the occurrence of disfluencies and repair behaviour. These quantitative analyses are complemented by qualitative analyses of filled pauses and repetitions, as well as each category of repairs. The aims are to examine the influence of directionality on the occurrence of filled pauses and repetitions and to examine the reasons that cause these repairs. The results indicate that directionality has some impact on the interpreting performance of student interpreters, but such impact is negligible on the performance of professionals. The results also show that expertise helps professional interpreters cope with the challenge caused by directionality better in comparison with student interpreters, even with an average of 3.5 years’ experience. Findings in this study provide new insights on the understanding of disfluencies and repairs through interpreters’ performance. In addition, the study contributes to closing the current gaps in the literature regarding the impact of directionality on disfluencies and repairs in English<>Chinese SI and presents pedagogical implications for SI training in these two directions.

Variation isn’t that hard: Morphosyntactic choice does not predict production difficulty

The following paper explores the link between production difficulty and grammatical variability. Using a sub-sample of the Switchboard Corpus of American English (285 transcripts, 34 speakers), this paper shows that the presence of variable contexts does not positively correlate with two metrics of production difficulty, namely filled pauses (um and uh) and unfilled pauses (speech planning time). When 20 morphosyntactic variables are considered collectively (N= 6,268), there is no positive effect. In other words, variable contexts do not correlate with measurable production difficulties. These results challenge the view that grammatical variability is somehow sub-optimal for speakers, with additional burdensome cognitive planning.

Can filled pauses be represented as linguistic items? Investigating the effect of exposure on the perception and production of um

The current paper presents three studies that investigated the effect of exposure on the mental representations of filled pauses ( um/uh). In Study 1, a corpus analysis identified the frequency of co-occurrence of filled pauses with words located immediately before or after them in naturalistic spoken adult British English (BNC2014). Based on the collocations identified in Study 1, in Study 2, 22 native British English-speaking adults heard sentences in which the location of filled pauses and the co-occurring words were manipulated and the participants were asked to judge the acceptability of the sentences heard. Study 3 was a sentence recall experiment in which we asked 29 native British English adults to repeat a similar set of sentences as used in Study 2. We found that frequency-based distributional patterns of filled pauses (Study 1) affected the sentence judgments (Study 2) and repetition accuracy (Study 3), in particular when the filled pause followed its collocate. Thus, the current study provides converging evidence for the account maintaining that filled pauses are linguistic items. In addition, we suggest filled pauses in certain locations could be considered as grammatical items, such as suffixes.

Speech Pauses and Pronominal Anaphors

This paper addresses the usefulness of speech pauses for determining whether third person neuter gender singular pronouns refer to individual or abstract entities in Danish spoken language. The annotations of dyadic map task dialogues and spontaneous first encounters are analyzed and used in machine learning experiments act to automatically identify the anaphoric functions of pronouns and the type of abstract reference. The analysis of the data shows that abstract reference is more often performed by marked (stressed or demonstrative pronouns) than by unmarked personal pronouns in Danish speech as in English, and therefore previous studies of abstract reference in the former language are corrected. The data also show that silent and filled pauses precede significantly more often third person singular neuter gender pronouns when they refer to abstract entities than when they refer to individual entities. Since abstract entities are not the most salient ones and referring to them is cognitively more hard than referring to individual entities, pauses signal this complex processes. This is in line with perception studies, which connect pauses with the expression of abstract or complex concepts. We also found that unmarked pronouns referring to an entity type usually referred to by a marked pronoun are significantly more often preceded by a speech pause than marked pronouns with the same referent type. This indicates that speech pauses can also signal that the referent of a pronoun of a certain type is not the most expected one. Finally, language models were produced from the annotated map task and first encounter dialogues in order to train machine learning experiments to predict the function of third person neuter gender singular pronouns as a first step toward the identification of the anaphoric antecedents. The language models from the map task dialogues were also used for training classifiers to determine the referent type (speech act, event, fact or proposition) of abstract anaphors. In all cases, the best results were obtained by a multilayer perceptron with an F1-score between 0.52 and 0.67 for the three-class function prediction task and of 0.73 for the referential type prediction.

The dual status of filled pauses: Evidence from genre, proficiency and co-occurrence

The present corpus study aims to contribute to the debate regarding the lexical or non-lexical status of filled pauses. Although they are commonly associated with hesitation, disfluency, and production difficulty, it has also been argued that they can serve more fluent communicative functions in discourse (e.g., turn-taking, stance-marking). Our work is grounded in a usage-based and discourse-functional approach to filled pauses, and we address this debate by examining the multiple characteristics of euh and eum in spoken French, as well as their co-occurrence with discourse markers. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, we analyze their distribution across different communication settings (prepared monologs vs. spontaneous conversations) and levels of language proficiency (native vs. non-native). Quantitative findings indicate differences in frequency, duration, position, and patterns of co-occurrence across corpora, and our qualitative analyses identify fine-grained differences, mainly two distinct patterns of distribution (initial position clustered with a discourse marker vs. medial position clustered with other hesitation markers), reflecting the different “fluent” and “disfluent” uses of filled pauses. We thus argue for a dual status of euh and eum based on formal, functional, and contextual features.