Between <i>Äh(m)</i> and <i>Euh(m)</i>: The Distribution and Realization of Filled Pauses in the Speech of German-French Simultaneous Bilinguals

Lo, Justin J. H.

doi:10.1177/0023830919890068

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Third, regarding N-only FPs (exclusive to Spanish), there was not a significant difference between the two Spanish-speaking groups, indicating that the bilinguals, once again, display patterns like those of the Spanish comparisons. The findings based on RQ 1 support previous research showing that dimensions such as relative FP usage can vary across languages and dialects (e.g., Lo, 2019;Tian et al, 2017;Wieling et al, 2016)-here, we show that the same principles apply when comparing bilingual and representative comparison speakers.…”

Section: Answering the Research Questionssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…The situation of sustained, cross-generational contact between Afrikaans and Spanish is not, to our knowledge, replicated in any other region in the world. In our analysis, we have gone beyond the impressionistic description of FP usage in bilingual speech-our research represents an important step in obtaining an objective, acoustic analysis of bilingual data produced in a spontaneous setting (see also Erker & Bruso, 2017;Lo, 2019). Specifically, we focused on the relative use of three different types of FPs (categorical analysis), as well as on vowel quality and segmental durations (continuous analysis).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, the mean F1 of the bilinguals in Afrikaans was significantly lower than that of the Afrikaans-comparison group, in the direction of the Spanish comparisons. Furthermore, the fact that the bilinguals displayed distinct distributions in each of their languages (i.e., statistically significant differences between their L1 and L2) suggests that there are separate, unmerged categories on this dimension (see also Lo, 2019).…”

Section: Patterns Of Cross-language Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Filled Pauses Are Susceptible to Cross-Language Phonetic Influence

García‐Amaya

Lang

2020

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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This article investigates the effects of long-term bilingualism on the production of filled pauses (FPs; e.g., uh, um, eh, em) in the speech of Afrikaans-Spanish bilinguals from Patagonia, Argentina. The instrumental analysis draws from a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews obtained from three speaker groups: L1-Afrikaans/L2-Spanish bilinguals; L1-Spanish-comparison speakers, also from Patagonia; and L1-Afrikaans-comparison speakers from South Africa. In the data analysis, we examined relative FP usage (categorical outcomes), as well as phonetic measures of vowel quality and segmental duration (continuous outcomes). The results allude to multiple patterns of cross-language influence (e.g., L1-to-L2 influence, L2-to-L1 influence, bidirectional influence), which depend on the phonetic measure explored. Overall, the findings suggest that the patterns of cross-language phonetic influence observed in the L2 learning of traditionally understood lexical items likewise hold in the L2 learning of hesitation markers such as FPs.

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Section: Answering the Research Questionssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Patterns Of Cross-language Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Filled Pauses Are Susceptible to Cross-Language Phonetic Influence

García‐Amaya

Lang

2020

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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“…However, there is little acoustic evidence for this claim, because crosslinguistic studies examining filled pauses are rare. One study with 15 German-French simultaneous bilinguals showed that they developed language-specific filled pauses (Lo, 2019). In today's society, many speakers are sequential bilinguals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-linguistic filled pause realization: The acoustics of uh and um in native Dutch and non-native English

Boer

Heeren

2020

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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It has been claimed that filled pauses are transferred from the first (L1) into the second language (L2), suggesting that they are not directly learned by L2 speakers. This would make them usable for cross-linguistic forensic speaker comparisons. However, under the alternative hypothesis that vowels in the L2 are learnable, L2 speakers adapt their pronunciation. This study investigated whether individuals remain consistent in their filled pause realization across languages, by comparing filled pauses (uh, um) in L1 Dutch and L2 English by 58 females. Next to the effect of language, effects of the filled pauses' position in the utterance were considered, as these are expected to affect acoustics and also relate to fluency. Mixed-effects models showed that, whereas duration and fundamental frequency remained similar across languages, vowel realization was language-dependent. Speakers used um relatively more often in English than Dutch, whereas previous research described speakers to be consistent in their um:uh ratio across languages. Results furthermore showed that filled-pause acoustics in the L1 and L2 depend on the position in the utterance. Because filled pause realization is partially adapted to the L2, their use as a feature for cross-linguistic forensic speaker comparisons may be restricted. V

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“…in vowel quality, (Candea et al, 2005 ) and in segmental form/preference (Clark and FoxTree, 2002 )]. The use of FPs has been addressed in more recent studies on bilingualism (Gilquin, 2008 ; Rose and Watanabe, 2019 ; de Boer and Heeren, 2020 ; Lo, 2020 ; Muhlack, 2023 ) and is yet to be considered broadly in heritage language research (Polinsky, 2018 ). This gap will be addressed in this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do you say uh or uhm? A cross-linguistic approach to filler particle use in heritage and majority speakers across three languages

Böttcher,

Zellers

2024

Front. Psychol.

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Filler particles like uhm in English or ähm in German show subtle language-specific differences and their variation in form is related to socio-linguistic variables like gender. The use of fillers in a second language has been shown to differ from monolinguals' filler particle use in both frequency and form in different language contexts. This study investigates the language-specific use of filler particles by bilingual heritage speakers in both their languages, looking at the dominant majority language in the society and their minority heritage language spoken at home. This is done based on heritage Russian and German data and majority German and English data from the RUEG corpus. Language-specific fillers were extracted from the corpus and analyzed for their occurrence and segmental form. The frequency analysis suggests an influence of bilingualism, age group, and formality of the situation on the filler frequency across all languages. The number of filler particles is higher in formal, older, and bilingual speech. The form analysis reveals an effect of language and gender on the type of filler particle. The vocalic-nasal filler particles (e.g., uhm) are more frequently found in German and English and in female speech of these languages. Heritage speakers of Russian in contact with German and English show higher use of vocalic-nasal forms also in their Russian while producing similar gender related patterns to monolingual speakers in both their languages. The higher frequency of filler particles in formal situations, older speakers and in bilingual speech, is discussed related to cognitive load which is assumed to be higher in these contexts while speech style which differs between situations and social groups is also considered as explanation. The higher use of vocalic-nasal filler particles in German and English suggests language specific filler particle preferences also related to the socio-linguistic variable gender in these languages. The results from heritage speakers suggest and influence on filler particle form in their heritage language, while also revealing socio-linguistic usage patterns related to gender which are produced by heritage speakers similarly to monolinguals in their respective language.

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Between Äh(m) and Euh(m): The Distribution and Realization of Filled Pauses in the Speech of German-French Simultaneous Bilinguals

Cited by 10 publications

References 52 publications

Filled Pauses Are Susceptible to Cross-Language Phonetic Influence

Filled Pauses Are Susceptible to Cross-Language Phonetic Influence

Cross-linguistic filled pause realization: The acoustics of uh and um in native Dutch and non-native English

Do you say uh or uhm? A cross-linguistic approach to filler particle use in heritage and majority speakers across three languages

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