Pragmatic functions of lengthenings and filled pauses in the adult-directed speech of Hungarian children

Andrea Deme*

* Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

deme.andrea@nytud.mta.hu

Introduction

Lengthenings and pauses (silent and filled) are the most common disfluencies of spontaneous speech. Lengthenings (LE) are generally considered to be similar to filled pauses (FP) as both use the least amount of energy and similar duration to afford the speaker time for thought and speech planning (Eklund 2001). However, there is also a growing body of evidence suggesting that despite their obvious similarities, they differ significantly in their acoustic properties as well as their positions, which also might imply different functions in discourse.

In life the first experience in discourse is that of adult-(/parent-)directed speech (ADS), furthermore ADS is a dominant part of frontal instruction scenarios in school, therefore the management of adult-directed speech of children is undeniably an important issue to address.

In our study we focus on the role of LE and FP in discourse management of children communicating with adult interlocutors. It is hypothesized that LE and FP (accompanied by other parameters) play a role (and show functional distribution) in marking the possible places of turn ends (a.k.a. transition relevant places) to avoid or to initiate speaker exchange.

Subjects, material and methods

• 8 children (4 boys, 4 girls, age: 7–8);

• 45 minutes;

• Designation of LEs: carried out with a perception test (10 linguists, vowels marked by 6 listeners were counted as LE, introduced by Deme 2012);

• FPs were identified by means of auditory perception of the author.

How to determine transition relevant places?

• Places of grammatical completion (PGC): syntactic and semantic finiteness; without SP

Supposedly prototypical strategies can be observed for expressing the willingness to carry on speaking

• Places of possible turn ends (PTE): syntactic and semantic finiteness; with SP (and/or DMs)

Supposedly two separate strategies are used (with dominant prototypical forms): one for holding, one fore ceding the floor

• Possible markers of PGC and PTE: f0 contour (rising, falling), along with DMs, SPs

Do LE and FP mark these boundaries or turn starts / speaker exchange as well?

Results

Markedness of PGC and PTE

• No FP was found in PGC and PTE positions (only LEs!)

• Marking with LE seems to be an additional feature (to f0-contour), frequency of usage varies with speakers (i.e. frequently used by Boy 1, Boy 4, not used by Boy 2).

• Marking with LE accompanies mostly flat contours, but shows variation in unique cases (i.e. Girl 1 uses it with falling contour as well).

ilyen / ilyenek(et) ‘such’ > hát ‘well’ > és* ‘and’ + SP ~ (csak) ennyi(t)* ’that’s all’ ~ akkor* ‘then’ > aztán* ‘then’

Boy 1 Boy 2 Boy 3 Boy 4 Girl 1 Girl 2 Girl 3 Girl 4

LE

• 39 token • 90% marking PGC • 10% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 1 token • For speech planning

• 28 token • 7% marking turn start • 30 % marking PGC • 64% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 15 token • 100% marking PGC

• 18 token • 89% marking PGC • 11% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 25 token • 73% marking PGC •20% in DMs • 7% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 21 token • 86% marking PGC • 9% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies • 5% in DMs

• 7 token • 95% marking PGC • 5% marking turn start

FP

• 8 token • 50% marking turn start • 50% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 13 token • 83% marking turnstart • 17% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 12 token • 100% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 4 token • 2 marking PGC • 1 marking turn start • 1 marking for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• None

• 8 token • 100% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 3 token • 2 marking turn start • 1 for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 6 token • 50% marking PGC • 50% marking turn start

DM • 8 token • 100% marking PGC

• 2 token • 1 marking turn start • 1 marking PGC

• 3 token • 2 marking PGC • 1 marking turn start

• 3 token • 100% marking PGC (all of them explicit forms)

• 16 token • 75% marking PGC •15% marking ”restart” after PGC

• 9 token • 44% marking ”restart” after PGC •16% marking turn start • 40% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 8 token • 38% marking PGC • 36% marking turn start • 38% for planning / with adjacent disfluencies

• 1 token • marking PGC

Discussion and Conclusions

It was demonstrated that LE and FP might have a role in turn-allocation. LEs are more frequent at boundaries with flat or rising contour, which implies that LE might be connected to floor-holding strategies. FPs, on the other hand, are used for speech planning purposes more often, while their function in discourse seems to be connected more to signaling turn starts than to the places of possible speaker exchange.

PGC

• No falling contour is accompanied by LE.

• LE is not so common: probably the markedness caused by the f0-contour is ”enough” in these places, and LE is an additional (secondary) marker.

Plateau and rise commonly enhance the feeling of the infiniteness of the utterance (which balances grammatical finiteness, thus can be a used to express the intention of floor-holding).

PTE

• Two distinct dominant strategies: falling vs. plateau or rising (with / without LE).

If the plateau and rise expresses infiniteness as suggested above, falling contour might enhance the feeling of the finiteness of the utterance (thus can serve as means of floor ceding).

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

PGC PTE

Plateau

Plateau + LE

Rising

Rising + LE

Falling

Falling + LE

4.9%

47.4%

12.2%

18.9%

15.3%

11.5%

25.5%

10%

51.5%

References

Deme, A. 2012. Magánhangzónyújtások gyermekek spontán beszédében. [Lengthenings in the spontaneous speech of children.] In: Váradi T. (szerk.) VI. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktoranduszkonferencia, Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet. 24-39. Dér, Cs. I. 2005. Diskurzusszerveződés és grammatikalizáció. [Discourse structure and grammaticalization] Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 102: 247–264. Eklund, R. 2001. Prolongations: A dark horse in the disfluency stable. Proceedings of Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech. University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 5–8.

Clear boundary marking strategies (PGC or turn start): LE used by 6 speakers; FP used by 4 speakers (3 used both); while 7 speakers used DMs.

*Not reported in adult speakers (see Dér 2005).

DMs