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Related Experiment Videos

Descriptive discourse: topic familiarity and disfluencies.

Sandra Merlo1, Letícia Lessa Mansur

  • 1Laboratory of Phonetics, Institute of Language Studies, Campinas State University, R. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, 571, LAFAPE, SP, Brazil, 13084-971. sgmerlo@yahoo.com.br

Journal of Communication Disorders
|September 29, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Familiar topics lead to richer oral descriptions with more attributes. Speech disfluencies like fillers and pauses are common, with distinct roles in discourse.

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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Speech Science
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • Understanding topic familiarity's impact on oral discourse is crucial for speech analysis.
  • Disfluencies in adult speech provide insights into cognitive processes during language production.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between topic familiarity and the number of propositions in oral descriptions.
  • To analyze the distribution and types of disfluencies in adult oral discourse.

Main Methods:

  • Adult speakers produced oral descriptions of familiar and unfamiliar topics.
  • Disfluencies, including fillers, pauses, repetitions, and prolongations, were systematically analyzed.
  • Quantitative analysis of propositions and disfluency durations was performed.

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Main Results:

  • Participants produced significantly more attributes when describing familiar topics compared to unfamiliar ones.
  • Fillers and lexical pauses were the most prevalent disfluencies.
  • Hesitation pauses showed a strong correlation between their total duration and frequency of occurrence.

Conclusions:

  • Topic familiarity influences the richness of oral descriptive discourse.
  • Disfluencies serve distinct communicative roles, differentiating fillers from other types like pauses and repetitions.
  • The analysis of speech disfluencies can aid in differentiating normal from disordered speech production.