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
- speech
- linguists
- filled
- phenomena
- listeners
- 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
- benefit
- buy
- call
- catch
- communication
- filled
- finished
- fish
- hesitation
- important
- insignificant
- interpreted
- interruptions
- kind
- lets
- linguists
- listeners
- meaningful
- pause
- pauses
- people
- phenomena
- phenomenon
- remember
- seemingly
- sign
- signal
- silent
- situation
- speaking
- speech
- spoken
- start
- thoughts
- time
- word