This research offers a first analysis of hesitations in Punjabi, an under-researched language, in conjunction with a crosslinguistic comparison.We show speaker related variation in the frequency of hesitations in Punjabi.Variability was also observed in the form of filled pauses which comprised vowels or vowel-consonant sequences with nasals or obstruents.The vowels in filled pauses differed based on their segmental context and individual speakers.Automatic clustering showed that (lexicalized) filled pauses were grouped by F0 register, instead of F0 contour.These results (1) have cross-linguistic significance and (2) provide insights for modeling hesitations in speech technological systems.
Research into fluency in interpreted target language texts has received considerable research attention in Interpreting Studies for two reasons: first, fluency plays a key role in the evaluation of interpreter performance in training and by the target audience, and, second, it contributes to a better understanding of the covert processes of speech planning during interpreting. The aim of this paper is to map the frequency of occurrence of silent pauses, filled pauses and lengthenings in the consecutively interpreted Hungarian target language output of interpreter trainees. As part of a longitudinal study, recordings were made of the students’ consecutive interpreting performance at the end of the second, third and fourth semesters of a 4-semester master’s program in translation and interpreting. Our results indicate that there were no significant changes in the frequency of occurrence of disfluencies in the target language output of students in the recordings made at different stages of interpreter training. However, the average duration of filled pauses in the interpreted target language texts decreased significantly as students progressed in their training.
We present an analysis of register variation (i.e. conventional-ized and socially recurring linguistic patterns of intra-individual speech behaviour) of filler particles in German spontaneous speech in contrasting situated interactions. In this study, we analyse intra-and inter-individual differences in the use of lexical type of filler particles and their phonetic realizations. Data was elicited with a novel method where participants talk to a video-taped interlocutor in a simulated tele-conference. This set-up allows us to systematically and consistently manipulate the experimental condition while eliciting laboratory induced differences in fine phonetic detail. We find evidence for register differences but also a high inter-individual variability.
Disfluencies such as fillers and false starts provide a window into the cognitive processes underlying speech planning.One of the reasons for the occurrence of disfluencies is increased processing load due to the size or complexity of an upcoming utterance.Previous research indicates that disfluencies correlate with an above-average size of following utterances.This paper tests this hypothesis by comparing the size of inter-pausal units that follow a disfluency with those that do not, based on a sample of 51 diverse languages from a language documentation corpus.Results suggest that the presence of disfluencies has little to no effect on the size or complexity of upcoming utterances, be they measured in phonological or morphological terms.A discussion of potential alternative explanations is offered.
