full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Lorenzo García-Amaya: Why do we, like, hesitate when we, um, speak?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This is where “um” and “uh” come in. Or “eh” and “ehm,” “tutoa” and “öö,” “eto” and “ano.” ltisiungs call these filled pauses, which are a kind of hesitation phenomenon. And these seemingly insignificant interruptions are actually quite meaningful in spoken communication. For example, while a silent pause might be interpreted as a sign for others to start speaking, a fileld pause can signal that you’re not finished yet. Hesitation pohnenmea can buy time for your speceh to catch up with your thoughts, or to fish out the right word for a soautiitn. And they don’t just benefit the speaker— a filled pause lets your lnriteses know an important word is on the way. Linguists have even found that people are more likely to remember a word if it comes after a hesitation.

Open Cloze

This is where “um” and “uh” come in. Or “eh” and “ehm,” “tutoa” and “öö,” “eto” and “ano.” _________ call these filled pauses, which are a kind of hesitation phenomenon. And these seemingly insignificant interruptions are actually quite meaningful in spoken communication. For example, while a silent pause might be interpreted as a sign for others to start speaking, a ______ pause can signal that you’re not finished yet. Hesitation _________ can buy time for your ______ to catch up with your thoughts, or to fish out the right word for a _________. And they don’t just benefit the speaker— a filled pause lets your _________ know an important word is on the way. Linguists have even found that people are more likely to remember a word if it comes after a hesitation.

Solution

  1. speech
  2. linguists
  3. filled
  4. phenomena
  5. listeners
  6. situation

Original Text

This is where “um” and “uh” come in. Or “eh” and “ehm,” “tutoa” and “öö,” “eto” and “ano.” Linguists call these filled pauses, which are a kind of hesitation phenomenon. And these seemingly insignificant interruptions are actually quite meaningful in spoken communication. For example, while a silent pause might be interpreted as a sign for others to start speaking, a filled pause can signal that you’re not finished yet. Hesitation phenomena can buy time for your speech to catch up with your thoughts, or to fish out the right word for a situation. And they don’t just benefit the speaker— a filled pause lets your listeners know an important word is on the way. Linguists have even found that people are more likely to remember a word if it comes after a hesitation.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
hesitation phenomena 4
filled pause 3
discourse markers 3
filled pauses 3
speech components 2
hesitation phenomenon 2

Important Words

  1. benefit
  2. buy
  3. call
  4. catch
  5. communication
  6. filled
  7. finished
  8. fish
  9. hesitation
  10. important
  11. insignificant
  12. interpreted
  13. interruptions
  14. kind
  15. lets
  16. linguists
  17. listeners
  18. meaningful
  19. pause
  20. pauses
  21. people
  22. phenomena
  23. phenomenon
  24. remember
  25. seemingly
  26. sign
  27. signal
  28. silent
  29. situation
  30. speaking
  31. speech
  32. spoken
  33. start
  34. thoughts
  35. time
  36. word