Self Addressed Questions and Filled Pauses: A Cross-linguistic Investigation

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Linguistic Pragmatics
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Disfluencies, such as filled pauses, are debated as communicative signals.
• The Filler-As-Words hypothesis posits that filled pauses function as words signaling specific information.
• Previous research suggests different forms of filled pauses may indicate varying delay lengths.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the Filler-As-Words hypothesis.
• To analyze the communicative functions of filled pauses across languages.
• To investigate the relationship between filled pauses and self-addressed questions (SAQs).

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the distribution of self-addressed questions (SAQs) in relation to filled pauses.
• Cross-linguistic comparison of filled pause usage in English (British and American), Chinese, and Japanese.
• Examination of SAQ content to identify underlying communicative problems.

Main Results:

• SAQs address different issues across languages: memory-retrieval (English, Chinese) and appropriateness (Japanese).
• British English uses "um" for more severe problems than "uh," unlike American English.
• Chinese filled pauses signal the syntactic category of problematic constituents.
• Japanese filled pauses indicate levels of interlocutor interaction.

Conclusions:

• Data supports the Filler-As-Words hypothesis, indicating filled pauses are communicative.
• The specific meanings and communicative dimensions of filled pauses differ significantly across languages and dialects.
• Filled pauses serve nuanced pragmatic functions beyond simply signaling delay.