| As a common phenomenon in spontaneous speech, disfluent fillers exercise a great influence on spoken language proficiency and communication results. However, disfluent fillers have not attracted enough attention as the backward of spoken English study. In home and abroad, most of studies are concentrated on native English speakers and English learners, while there are few researches on Chinese learners. Based on self-built corpus, we carry out the research on the disfluent fillers in Chinese learners’spontaneous speech.According to the predecessor research and actual data, we divide disfluent fillers into three categories:syllables or syllable combinations, filling words or phrases,filling clauses. Then we perform a statistics analysis on the frequency of disfluent fillers in spontaneous speech. The results show that the most frequent fillers are syllables or syllable combinations, filling words or phrases come second, and filling clauses are the last. As for language proficiency difference, the frequency of syllables or syllable combinations is inversely proportional to language proficiency, while the frequency of filling words or phrases has little to do with language proficiency.We also find that the using of filling words or phrases depends on the speakers’personal preference.This paper makes a further exploration into the location of disfluent fillers. The study finds that disfluent fillers prefer to appear at the beginning of sentence or between the clauses rather than other positions.This is because the speaker needs more time to design his or her speech plan at the above two positions. Disfluent fillers have different pragmatic functions according to their distribution. We summarize the following five points:(1)to start an utterance; (2)to repair the wrong or inappropriate expression; (3)to prepare for next utterance; (4) to explain further or add new information; (5) to judge the previous expression.This study has some reference significance for Chinese speaking teaching.At the teaching level, teachers should pay more attention to disfluent fillers in three areas: classroom teaching, oral test and comparative teaching. As for learners, besides enlarging the input and enhancing phrasal-remembering, they should pay more attention to the acquisition of speaking skills. |
