Position of Hesitation Marker in Everyday, Informal Conversation in English
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Abstract
Research on hesitation has revealed that hesitation markers are generally considered to be predominantly used in spontaneous speech. This study investigates and reports on the frequency and distribution of hesitation markers (specifically, filled pauses, small words, and repeats) in everyday conversation in English. The study examines the position of hesitation markers, looking at their distribution across utterances, produced by young adult speakers (of 15-25 years). Data were collected from everyday, informal conversation transcripts from Crystal & Davy (1975). The study attaches particular relevance to the naturalness of the dataset, in that it has not been elicited in any way. All 15 conversational extracts were examined to gain thorough insight into the distribution of hesitation markers across syntactic utterances, for general overall dominant patterns in natural conversation. In identifying the frequency of hesitation markers used in the initial, middle and final positions of the conversational utterances, it was discovered that participants most frequently use hesitation markers in the middle of general conversational utterances, followed by the initial and final positions, respectively.
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