Simon Williams - Disfluency and Proficiency in Second Language Speech Production

Short (untimed) pause

Silent pauses are represented in seconds and tenths of a second within round brackets

A colon indicates a prolongation of the preceding sound: the more colons, the longer the prolongation.

A question mark indicates a rising inflection.

An upward arrow indicates a marked rise in intonation.

the pound sterling sign indicates a smiley voice.

words that occur between the greater than sign and the less than sign indicate talk delivered at a faster speed than the surrounding talk.

words that occur between the less than sign and the greater than sign indicate talk delivered at a slower speed than the surrounding talk.

single round brackets containing no transcription indicate talk that is too indistinct to transcribe

talk between double round brackets indicates some sort of activity within the interaction.

(CEFR) post-beginner language level

syntax-based Analysis of Speech Unit

(CEFR) pre-intermediate language level

(CEFR) post-intermediate language level

(CEFR) advanced language level

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

Continuous Speech Recogniser software capable of detecting and processing meaningful natural language, e.g. based on vocabulary items, that allows a suitable response to be automatically generated and enables human-computer interaction to take place based on this principle

Diploma de Espaol como Lengua Extranjera

Equal Appearing Interval Scale - a form of attitude measurement that allows quantitative findings to be reported on qualitative variables such as attitude

Electrical Geodesics here refers to a non-invasive proprietary head net containing electrodes sensitive to small changes in voltage fields generated within the brain that is widely used in neuroscience studies

Elicited imitation testa test in which listeners repeat samples of language, e.g. sentences, as accurately as possible

Event-related potential is a measurable electrical response in the brain to a cognitive, motor, or sensory stimulus

Educational Testing Servicea non-profit company specialising in educational testing and assessment

Filled pause

False start

Ghent Eye-Tracking Corpus

International English Language Testing System

First language

Second language

Lengthening, Fragment, Pause (filled)

Mean length of syllable

Mean opinion score

an electrical signal detectable in the brain in response to stimuli that include signs in the form of words, sounds and images. It is a form of ERP that peaks at 400 ms after onset.

Native speaker, i.e. speaker of an L1

Non-native speaker, i.e. speaker of an L2

Occupational English Test

Other-initiated self-repair

Prolongation

Pearson English Language Tests

Repetition

Self-correction

Self-initiated self-repair

Spcificits des Interactions verbales dans le cadre de Tandems linguistiques Anglais-Franaisverbal and non-verbal corpus of conversational French

Second language acquisition

Silent pause

the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS)

Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test

Test of English for International Communication

Transition relevance place in conversation

University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate

What is Speaking Proficiency corpus

Disfluency is a relatively recent construct. Not until the last century did fluency with the specific meaning of ease of speaking become a subject of widespread interest; and only in the mid-twentieth century did its corollary, the absence of such a facility, become the focus of systematic empirical study. Although the concepts of fluency and disfluency have been applied in a metaphorical sense to a number of human, and occasionally non-human, activities, the locus of much investigation has been the linguistically productive areas of speech and writing. While disciplines such as medicine and neuroscience have taken an interest in the pathology of dysfluent speech in physiological conditions such as aphasia, apraxia, and dysarthria, linguists and psycholinguists have sought to understand and analyze the mundane occurrences of the non-pathological disorders of articulation . Six of those resulting from social-psychological conditions have become standard psycholinguistic typologies of speech disfluency: repetitions, filled and silent pauses , prolongations , self-corrections and false starts .