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One conventional view of "disfluencies" in speech is that they're the result of confusions and errors, such as difficulties in deciding what to say or how to say it, or changing ideas about what to say or how to say it, or slips of the tongue that need to be corrected. Another idea is that such interpolations can serve to "hold the floor" across a phrase boundary, or to warn listeners that a pause is coming.

These views are supported by the fact that fluent reading lacks filled pauses, restarts, repeated words, and non-speech vocalizations. And as a result, (human) transcripts of interviews, conversations, narratives, and speeches generally edit out all such interpolations, yielding a text that's more like writing, and is easier to read than an accurate transcript would be. Automated speech-to-text systems also generally omit (or falsely transcribe) such things.

The result is a good choice if the goal is readability, but not if the goal is to analyze the dynamics of speech production, speech perception, and conversational interaction. And in fact, even a brief examination of such interpolations in spontaneous speech is enough to tell us that the conventional views are incomplete at best.

I've noticed recently that automated transcripts from rev.ai do a good job of transcribing ums and uhs in English, though repeated words are still omitted. And in the other direction, I've noticed that the transcripts on the site of the U.S. Department of Defense include (some of the) repeated words, but not the filled pauses.  It's interesting to compare those transcripts to the audio (where available) — I offer a sample below.

The source for this sample is "Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder Holds an On-Camera Press Briefing", 8/31/2022. We'll skip the intro, and start with the first question:

The site's transcript:

Thanks, Pat. So take — so one quick clarification on what you just said. At one point there was, I thought, a suggestion that one of the NASAMS may move more quickly. Does this mean that neither — that no NASAMS yet are in Ukraine, or been sent to Ukraine? Is that just — just want to clarify.

My transcript:

Thanks, Pat.
UM
So can- can I have one quick clarification on what you just said UM
at one point
there m-
was I thought a suggestion that one of the NASAMs may
move more quickly
d- does this mean that neither- that no NASAMs are yet
in Ukraine or been sent to Ukraine. Is that just-
just want to clarify

As I noted, the site's transcript leaves out the filled pauses — and in this case, the placement of the reporter's two UMs seems consistent with the standard stories.

General Ryder's answer (again with the site's transcript in blue, and my transcript in red):

Correct, to my knowledge, those will be manufactured by the contractor and then — and delivered when — when complete.

Correct. To my knowledge those will be
UH
manufactured
UH by the contractor and then- and delivered when- when complete.

In this case, the first UH fits the conventional story, but the second one is problematic. It's quite short (180 msec.) and followed by no pause at all — so it can't be covering up (or signaling) much of a delay:

And that second UH  occurs at the beginning of a phrase, and so it can't be meant to hold the floor.

The next question:

Can you give us a — a sense of the Pentagon's assessment at this point of the counteroffensive that Ukraine has said that is going on, particularly in the south, and whether you're seeing any significant changes of hands, in any of the property there?  And second question:  Are there any specific weapon systems or equipment that the U.S. military right now is going to have to go out and reorder because of the PDAs?  Is there anything — any shortage anywhere that you all are seeing because of the PDAs?

UM Can you give us a- a sense of the Pentagon's assessment at this point of the counteroffensive
that Ukraine has said that is going on, particularly in the south
and whether you're seeing any
UM significant changes of hands, in any of the property there?
And second question: Are there any
UM specific weapon systems or equipment that the U.S. military right now
UM is going to have to go out and reorder because of the PDAs? Is there anything- any shortage anywhere
that you all are seeing because of the PDAs?

The reporter again uses UMs rather than UHs, but this time her four UMs are all phrase-initial. They're moderately long (mean 425 msec.), and some of them are followed by a brief silent pause (120 msec. or so), and thus the stalling-for-time idea is not totally out.

The general's response:

So — so on the latter piece, certainly, we'll — we'll aim to get you any detailed information on that note.  But I will say that I'm not aware of any specific shortages at this time.  Again, we will continue to maintain an open dialogue as — as early as next week again in terms of what Ukrainian needs are in the fight.

In regards to fighting in Ukraine, what I would tell you is that we are very sensitive to not getting ahead of the Ukrainians.  I think you've heard some of their public statements, not the least of which is their president talking about the need for operations security.  And so certainly from this podium, I'm not going to talk about tactical-level battlefield detail.

What I will say is that we are aware of Ukrainian military operations that have made some forward movement, and in some cases, in the — in the Kherson region.  We are aware, in some cases, of Russian units falling back.  But again, in order to preserve operation security and to give the Ukrainians the time and the space that they need to conduct their operations, I'm not going to go into that level of detail from the podium.

The last thing I would say on that is that our focus, as you know, remains on working with the Ukrainians and our allies and our partners around the world to ensure that they have what they need to fight against Russia in their homeland.  Thanks, Lita.

UH so- so on the latter piece uh certainly we'll-
we'll aim to get you any
detailed information UH on that note but I will say
UH that I'm not aware of any specific shortages at this time.
UH we will continue to maintain an open dialogue as- as early as next week again
UH in terms of what Ukrainian needs are
in the fight.
UH in regards to UH fighting in
Ukraine
UH what I would tell you is that UH we are
very sensitive to not getting ahead of the Ukrainians
UH I think you've heard some of their public statements, UH not the least of which is their president
UH And so certainly from this podium, I'm not going to talk about tactical-level
UH battlefield detail.
What I will say UH is that we are aware
UH Ukrainian
UH military
UM operations that have made some forward movement
UH and in some cases UH in the- in the Kherson region
UH We are aware, in some cases, of Russian units falling back
UH But again, in order to preserve operation security
UH and to give the Ukrainians the time and the space that they need to conduct their operations,
UH I'm not going to go into that level of detail.
UH from the podium.
The last thing I would say on that is that our focus
UH as you know remains on
working with the Ukrainians and our allies and our partners
around the world
to ensure that they have what they need
to fight against Russia
UH in their homeland
thanks, Lita

That response include 25 UHs in 266 words (9.4%). Of those, 19 are speech-segment initial and 6 are medial — but they're generally quite short (typically between 100 and 300 msec.) and not followed by a silent pause, so it's hard to believe that they're stalling for cognitive time, signaling a silence, or holding the floor.

I'm reminded of something I wrote about nearly 20 years ago ("And uh — then what?", 1/5/2004):

There has been a lot of work over the years suggesting that disfluencies are often really communicative choices rather than system failures. I have a favorite anecdote about this. Former New York mayor Ed Koch has (or used to have?) a radio talk show, which I would sometimes listen to in the car when I lived in northern New Jersey, back in the neolithic era. Though highly verbal and even glib, Ed is a big um-and-uh-er, to the point that he would often introduce himself by saying "This is Ed uh Koch." Since it's not credible that he was having trouble remembering his own last name, I concluded that he often used a filled pause as a sort of emphatic particle.

[A quick web search turns up a piece on Koch's radio career, and some YouTube clips, so if I had more time this morning I might be able to verify this memory…]

Anyhow, "emphatic particle" is not any better as an account of General Ryder's UHs than any of the other theories. Perhaps UH is functioning here as a sort of discourse marker, like so or well or like?

The rhetorical science of disfluencies interpolations is obviously still far from complete — though if you're interested the topic, I recommend Hong Zhang's 2020 dissertation, "The Distribution Of Disfluencies In Spontaneous Speech: Empirical Observations And Theoretical Implications".

[I should emphasize that General Ryder is a fluent and effective speaker, as you'd expect for someone appointed to be Pentagon Press Secretary. Although there's a lot of individual and contextual variation in the relative frequency and phrasal distribution of the different sorts of "disfluencies", good communicators often provide plenty of data.]

And below you'll find links to many more past posts on related topics than you're likely to want to read:

"And uh — then what?" 1/5/2004
"Reanalysis — and not", 2/8/2004
"Clarifying status in Wolof by fake disfluency" 5/20/2004
"um, em, uh, ah, aah, er, eh", 5/2/2005
"Status and fluency" 5/11/2004
"The rhetoric of silence", 10/3/2004
"The the the and the thee the", 7/26/2005
"Linguistic mens rea", 10/6/2005
"Young men talk like old women", 11/6/2005
"Trends in presidential disfluency" 11/26/2005
"Trembling to be wrong" 12/20/2005
"I mean, you know", 8/19/2007
"The phonetics of flop sweat" 9/26/2008
"'Babbling points' from all over" 9/30/2008
"Speaking (in)coherently", 11/20/2008
"Filled pauses and faked audio", 12/28/2008
"More (dis)fluency and (in)coherence", 12/31/2008
"Who knows?", 1/7/2009
"Conversational rhythms", 4/13/2009
"The meaning of timing", 8/7/2009
"Uh accommodation", 4/2/2010
"The art of conversation", 7/24/2010
"So new?", 8/22/2010
"If you will" 7/29/2011
"Repetition disfluency", 8/15/2011
"Non-Markovian yawp", 9/18/2011
"Mitt Romney's rapid phrase-onset repetitions", 10/28/2012
"Marmoset conversation", 10/21/2013
"Speaker-change offsets", 10/22/2013
"Fillers: Autism, gender, and age" 7/30/2014
"More on UM and UH" 8/3/2014
"UM UH 3" 8/14/2014
"Male and female word usage" 8/7/2014
"Educational UM / UH" 8/13/2014
"UM / UH geography" 8/13/2014
"UM / UH: Life-cycle effects vs. language change" 8/15/2014
"Filled pauses in Glasgow" 8/17/2014
"ER and ERM in the spoken BNC" 8/18/2014
"Um and Uh in Dutch" 9/16/2014
"UM / UH map in the media" 9/17/2014
"UM / UH in German" 9/29/2014
"Um, there's timing information in Switchboard?" 10/5/2014
"Trending in the Media: Um, not exactly…" 10/7/2014
"UH / UM in Norwegian" 10/8/2014
"On thee-yuh fillers uh and um" 11/11/2014
"UM / UH update" 12/13/2014
"More about UM/UH on the Autism Spectrum", 4/17/2016
"Trump's eloquence" 8/15/2015
"Donald Trump's repetitive rhetoric" 12/5/2015
"Trump's rhetorical style" 12/26/2015
"Gertrude Trump" 6/19/2016
"The em-dash candidate" 8/15/2016
"The rhetorical style of spontaneous speech" 8/16/2016
"The narrow end of the funnel" 8/16/2016
"Disfluencies and smiles" 9/30/2016
"Uh" 10/12/2016
"Mistakes" 3/8/2017
"Fluent disfluency", 3/12/2017
"Presidential fluency", 10/31/2017
"SOTU interpolations", 2/6/2018
"World disfluencies", 5/16/2018
"'Um, tapes?'", 1/20/2019
"Dysfluency considered harmful", 5/19/2019
"Qualifying fluency", 6/4/2019
"Communicative disfluencies interpolations", 12/14/2019
"Disfluency stylings: On beyond hesitation", 7/20/2020
"Donald Trump, now with more filled pauses", 1/3/2021
"The meaning of filled pauses", 2/5/2022 * picture
"Disfluencies as music", 3/3/2022

 

September 3, 2022 @ 11:52 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Psychology of language

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