A Study On Eh-type Filled Pauses In Quanzhou English Majors' Spontaneous Speech

The occurrence of pause filler Eh and its variations like Ah, Mm, Uh, Oh, etc. is a prominent feature of ordinary speech. In the researcher's previous research on filled pauses of Eh and its variations in the year of 2004, with no exception, all 80 subjects from Huaqiao University produced Eh-type filled pauses in their spontaneous speech.Although with such ubiquity in spontaneous speech, Eh-type filled pauses were often regarded as a nuisance lying in the way of an ordered exposition. Later in the year of 1980, the publication of the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English has provided available material that was highly relevant to the research of filled pauses. Since then, filled pauses have attracted the focuses of psycholinguists and started to be seen as an essential element in spoken speech (Ragsdale, 1984: 235). However, most researches conducted so far have concentrated more on the nature of filled pauses themselves than on the variables that may influence the occurrence of filled pauses; additionally, few studies have been carried to examine the filled pauses in Chinese spontaneous speech; thus, the present study attempts to tackle these two aspects.In this study, quantitative and qualitative studies are conducted to investigate 220 Quanzhou English majors of different genders and grades from Huaqiao University, Quanzhou Normal University and Liming Vocational University. The present study aims at finding the most widely used variations of Eh-type filled pauses in subjects'Chinese and English spontaneous speech and the prominent locations of these filled pauses. The study also examines the influence imposed by the variables of grades, sex and personality on the occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses in subjects'second language production, which is English in this case.The study unveils that, for Quanzhou English majors, the commonly prominent variations of Eh-type filled pauses in both Chinese and English spontaneous speech are Eh, Mm and the random repetitions and co-occurrence of Eh and Mm. Besides,"and"in English spontaneous speech and its counterpart"然后"in Chinese are functioning as filled pauses in subjects'spontaneous speech as well. And there are three main locations where the prominent Eh-type filled pauses frequently and uniquely occur in Quanzhou English majors'spontaneous speech, which are 1) at the beginning of sentences; 2) at clause boundaries; 3) at the end of sentences.Results of the paper interviews of this study indicate that 84.9% of the subjects have noticed the occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses in both others'spontaneous speech and their own speech. Most of the subjects consider Eh-type filled pauses as something normal and commonplace that mainly have 2 functions: 1) help people think and plan for what's about to come in speech; 2) soothe speakers'anxiety. In the meanwhile, quite a part of subjects have also mentioned that the high frequent occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses may make people feel impatient, distracted and it also is a marker of inconfidence and incompetence in English speaking. By revealing the pervasiveness of Eh-type filled pauses, this study serves to remind us the importance of keeping the monitoring of filled pauses into speakers'consciousness, so as to better control or appropriately use the Eh-type filled pauses in communication.The quantitative part of the study exposes that there is more occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses in subjects'English spontaneous speech than in Chinese. In the study, the more frequent the Eh-type filled pauses occur in their Chinese spontaneous speech, the more frequent the Eh-type filled pauses would be of in their English spontaneous speech. The frequency of Eh-type filled pauses is marginally related to subjects'grades. The occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses in females'English spontaneous speech is higher than the frequency in males.'Extroverted subjects produced the most filled pauses comparing to ambiverted and introverted subjects in English spontaneous speech and introverted subjects uttered the least filled pauses among the three personality types.It is proposed by the study that in the process of language teaching and learning, it is necessary for teachers to remind language learners the existence of filled pauses in their spontaneous speech. As language learners, they can benefit from their production strategy of pre-articulatory and post-articulatory monitoring. The process of monitoring from self and others can operate to reduce or even avoid the occurrence of Eh-type filled pauses when the filled pauses have influenced the effectiveness of communication.The thesis comprises the following six chapters: Chapter One introduces the overall background of the study together with rationale, scope, delimitation and significance of the study. Chapter Two reviews results of the previous research in hesitation phenomena. In Chapter Three, a theoretical framework is put forth based on the literature review unfolded in Chapter Two, and study questions and hypotheses of the present thesis are illustrated here as well. Chapter Four discloses the methodology of the study. The information of subjects, instruments, data collection and analysis of the study are revealed. Chapter Five shows us results of the study. Discussions are brought to address the reasons behind the major findings. The final Chapter unveils the tentative conclusions of the study. Pedagogical implications, limitations and further study suggestions are also presented in this last chapter.