Rethinking (Dis)fluency Within the Scope of Interactional Linguistics and Gesture Studies

Abstract

"The study of so-called ‘disfluency’ phenomena (uh and um, filled and unfilled pauses, self-repairs and the like) has gained a lot of attention in various fields in linguistics in the past few decades, but a majority of studies tend to be production-oriented and often disregard fundamental aspects of face-to-face communication such as interactional dynamics and gesture. This paper presents a multimodal and multilevel model of “inter-fluency”, considering different levels of analysis, mainly, talk, gesture, and interaction, by combining different theoretical frameworks and methodologies in gesture studies and interactional linguistics in order to bridge this gap and go beyond previous cognitive-oriented models. Keywords: Interaction, fluency, gesture, multimodality, interactive model"

Exploring the status of filled pauses as pragmatic markers

“…While this study only targets gazing behavior during filled pauses specifically,Kosmala (2021c) found a similar tendency in the whole data, regardless of whether they co-occurred with filled pauses or not.…”

“…Finally, the different phases of gesture were also annotated, following Seyfeddinipur (2006) and Kendon (2004), mainly "rest position" "preparation phrase" "hold" "stroke" and "retraction". Gestural actions were only annotated during the production of filled pauses for the purpose of this study, but a more detailed account of their distribution can be found in Kosmala (2021c).…”

“…Therefore, it will be argued throughout this paper that filled pauses should not solely be considered as results of internal cognitive demands, but as dynamic and fluid categories with different degrees of conventionalization and lexicality, the interpretation of which is further shaped by a number of situational and contextual factors (Tottie, 2011(Tottie, , 2014Cienki, 2012Cienki, , 2015, as well as their co-occurring visual-gestural behavior (Jehoul, Brône & Feyaerts 2016;Graziano & Gullberg, 2018;Seyfeddinipur, 2006, Kosmala 2021c. This leads us to the following research questions:…”

Exploring (dis)fluency patterns of identical repetitions in Romanian spontaneous speech

“…In order to explore complex fluency and disfluency [20], [21] patterns of identical repetitions (IRs), we focused our attention on the frequency and nature of the repeated items, but also on silent pauses and filler particles present within the editing phase.…”

A Multimodal Study of How Pronunciation-Induced Communication Breakdowns are Managed During Tandem Interactions

“…In this view, language is regarded as a complex interactive plurichannel system made of vocal-aural and visual-spatial modalities which are continuously deployed together in ways that are relevant to the interaction. Several authors have pointed out the multimodal dimension of tandem interactions, and have studied gestures with regards to corrective feedback, fluency mechanisms, or chains of reference (Kosmala, 2021;Debras & Beaupoil-Hourdel, 2019;Debras et al 2015Debras et al , 2020. In second language discourse, hand gestures are truly relevant as they can be used as a compensatory device with "expressive power and rich semiotic affordances" (Gullberg, 2011, p. 138).…”