Eintrag

Titel

Hesitation markers in English, German, and Dutch

Personen

Esther Leeuw

Jahr

2007

Typ

Aufsatz

Periodikum

Journal of Germanic linguistics

ISSN

1470-5427

Seiten

82 - 114

Heft

2

Sprache(n)

Deutsch
Englisch
Niederländisch

Schlagwörter

Kontrastiv
Pragmatik
Psycholinguistik
Statistik

Abstract

This study reports on a number of highly significant differences found between English, German, and Dutch hesitation markers. English and German native speakers used significantly more vocalic-nasal hesitation markers than Dutch native speakers, who used predominantly vocalic hesitation markers. English hesitation markers occurred most frequently when preceded by silence and followed by a lexical item, or when surrounded by silence. German and Dutch hesitation markers occurred most frequently surrounded by lexical items. In Dutch, vocalic-nasal hesitation markers dominated only when surrounded by silence. Vocalic-nasal hesitation markers dominated in all positions in English and German, although in the former language this was more salient than in the latter. Nasal hesitation markers were used significantly more frequently in German than in English or Dutch. In addition to overall language trends, speaker-specific differences, especially within German and Dutch, were observed. These results raise questions in terms of the symptom versus signal hypotheses regarding the function of hesitation markers.

https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/bdg/37004