| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Liaison: | is another feature of speech that occurs when two words are spoken at speed and the running together or liaison of these two words produces a new sound. For instance, when a word starts with a vowel, there is sometimes a carry-over sound, which is a direct result of the previous word ending in a consonant. For example 'There is someone over there' might sound like 'There ris someone', where the 'r' is sounded at the start of the verb 'is', resulting in a word that sounds like 'ris' |
| Pauses: | are self-explanatory – they indicate a gap in something said, and are marked by a parenthesis with a number inside, to indicate the number of seconds of time that elapsed between speech: (2) would indicate a pause of two seconds. Mircopauses (.) are sometimes seen as the punctuation of speech as they can indicate the boundaries of clauses and unitary pieces of information; at other times they can exist to allow the speaker the opportunity to consider his or her next utterance. |
| Voiced Pauses: | Simply pauses of sounds that allow the speaker time to consider their next utterance by indicating that the speaker's turn is not yet over and so prevent interruptions. Examples of voiced pauses are 'erm', 'um', 'ah' and 'er'. |
| Fillers: | Words that in their own right that carry no apparent meaning and are there to fill a gap in the conversation. Individuals are likely to fillers characteristic to their own speech. Frequently used fillers include: 'you know', 'sort of', 'you see', 'I mean', 'kind of' and 'well'. |
| Repetitions: | Often found in conversation. Repetition can indicate a speaker is searching for the right word and is unsure as to whether he or she has found it. It may be only a letter that is repeated and can indicate an element of uncertainty about the topic under discussion. |
| False Starts | Occur periodically, especially if the speaker becomes muddled or has so much to say that he or she losses track of speech constructions. It may be a section of speech started and then changed but returned to later. A false start could also occur if we start an utterance and realise we have made a mistake and need to correct ourselves, we use a conversational repair or self-correction (mentioned in The Structure Section), which can often be prefaced or coupled with the filler 'I mean'. For example, 'Remember that girl (.) er Stacy (.) er no (0.5) Tracey I mean'. |
| Overlaps: | Two speakers speaking at once will often break down the fluency of a conversation. They occur for various reasons: an end of turn may have been misjudged, someone may be keen to add to a point and wish to steal a turn, or there may be many participants who all hold equal status within the conversational group. |
| Backtracking: | Interrupting the current topic of conversation to introduce further information relevant to a topic discussed previously. |
| Non-standard forms: | encapsulate any deviation from the formal use of vocabulary and grammar usually found in written English. For example, in 'it were well cool' the third person plural verb 'were' is used instead of the standard English singular form, 'was'. In terms of vocabulary, informal speech is also characterised by the use of slang terms, |
| Elision: | occurs when we put certain words together to make well-used phrases. A good example would be 'fish 'n chips' |
| Ellipsis: | refers to missing words, which are generally understood from the context of the speech. |
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