Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech: Oh What a Difference an Oh Makes

Listener vs. speaker-oriented aspects of speech: Studying the disfluencies of individuals with autism spectrum disorders

“…These results add further support to the findings of Fox Tree and colleagues (Clark & Fox Tree, 2002;Fox Tree, 2001;Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999) in showing the useful nature of ums and uhs for both speakers and listeners in conversation. We also provide convergent evidence for the idea that ums and uhs are not simply meaningless fillers that listeners have opportunistically discovered how to make use of.…”

“…In the past, some approaches to this problem have involved referential communication tasks to better understand the roles of speakers and listeners in communicative exchanges (see Clark & Fox Tree, 2002;Fox Tree, 2001;Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999;Girbau, 2001;Horton & Keysar, 1996;Mangold & Pobel, 1988). This research has had success in determining which aspects of speech are helpful for a listener, but it remains unclear to what extent this is being done by the speaker for the benefit of the listener (i.e., is listener-oriented), or whether it is merely a regularity in the speaker's behavior that a listener may be able to exploit, and is not performed by the speaker with the listener's needs in mind (speaker-oriented) (see Bock, 1996;Brennan & Clark, 1996;Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999). For example, recent research has suggested that disfluencies such as filled-pause words serve a useful discourse function, indicating that the speaker is not finished speaking, and is trying to compose their next thought or find the correct word, and that listeners are able to utilize this information (Fox Tree, 2001).…”

Hedges enhance memory but inhibit retelling

“…Of the total 108 points (6 per participant) where hedges or likes had been spliced out, only 5 hedge-splice points and no like splice points were correctly identified. This low level of detectability is common in our laboratory (Fox Tree, 1995, 2001Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999) and suggests that any results found are not due to editing effects. Finally, participants in Experiment 2 were informed postexperiment that some specific elements of the dialogue had been excised.…”

“…Hosman & Wright, 1987), because hedges catch a listener's attention through their potentially unnecessary presence, or because people are more likely to listen for cues that tell them when a speaker wants them to pay attention rather than when not to pay attention (cf. Fox Tree, 2001;Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999). Regardless, hedges seem to encourage the listener to think about what the speaker has said or is saying, which increases the chance of later recall.…”

“…The alternative is that hedges and likes provide important information, their modifying presence perhaps focusing attention on the information they mark (see Underhill, 1988, for a discussion of like), making that material more worthy of note and recall. Although a focusing-attention function has not been demonstrated experimentally for hedges and likes, other spoken signals, such as oh and uh, have been shown to affect listeners' ability to access information (Fox Tree, 1995;Fox Tree & Schrock, 1999).…”