Hesitation marker
| Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Hesitation marker | |
|---|---|
| Author(s): | Lotte van Burgsteden (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2049-0687) |
| To cite: | van Burgsteden, Lotte. (2023). Generalized list completer. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [] |
A hesitation marker is an element in talk that indicates some hesitation on the speaker’s part. In fields such as linguistics, hesitation markers have also been termed “fillers” (e.g., Amiridze, et al. 2010). When speakers are searching for a word, they may delay providing that word, and hesitation markers are one of the devices speakers use to accomplish delay. Examples of hesitation markers are non-lexical items such as “uhm” or “uh” in English (Fox 2010), “øhm” or “øh” in Danish (Brøcker, et al. 2012), and “ehm”/“uhm” or “eh”/“uh” in Dutch (Wieling, et al. 2016). Discourse markers such as y’know and like in English can also perform a hesitation function in certain contexts (Fox 2010).
Hesitation markers typically indicate trouble and suspend the progressivity of the Turn-Constructional Unit (TCU). Even though hesitation markers have relatively little lexical content, they can perform an important role in an utterance-in-progress, and commonly project further talk from the speaker. Specifically, they show that another lexical item is due, allowing the speaker to hold the floor, but that the promised projection is not yet fully realized. For example, hesitation markers are often used in operations of self-repair (Schegloff, et al. 1977), such as in excerpt (1). Here, the speaker abandons the TCU-in-progress and initiates another TCU, marked by “uh:: uh” (line 1).
(1) (Lerner 2013: 100) 01 Cla: -> No: honey we go:t some it’s no:t uh:: uh we I have 02 another card table my (.) en my chai::rs arn’t very 03 good but (.) ah u we kin manage for th: three hours’n
In cases where speaking problems like hesitation markers interrupt the progressivity of a turn-at-talk, recipients are alerted to the possible occurrence of repair. After such hitches, the use of you know as a repair preface in English is recurrent and highly patterned (Clayman & Raymond 2021). However, such hitches are not necessary to show that repair is underway. In fact, in many cases where repair-prefaces (such as or-prefaces) are used, self-repair is produced without progressivity-disrupting hitches or alerts (Lerner & Kitzinger 2015).
On the other hand, hesitation markers, when produced in the course of TCU composition, can constitute an opportunity for co-participants to intervene (see Lerner 1991, 1996, 2004 on anticipatory completions), as is what happens in excerpt (2). Here, by “stepping in” and producing the projected item, Les treats Joy’s hesitation as an indication of trouble.
(2) (Lerner 2013: 99) 01 Joy: -> We were hoping to go toni:ght to see thee uh:m: 02 Les: -> .h the film show.=o:r the sli[:des.] 03 Joy: [Y:es.]
Goodwin (1987) has also revealed the interactive nature of hesitation markers. His work showed that displays of “forgetfulness,” including those involving hesitation markers, may be used as an interactive resource, since such displays may invite the recipient(s) to aid in the search for a particular word or phrase. Furthermore, as Goodwin (1979, 1981) has shown, speakers can use hesitations markers as a practice that occasions the recipient’s gaze during the speaker’s telling.
Additional Related Entries:
Cited References:
Amiridze, N., Davis, B.H., & Maclagan, M. (2010). Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders. John Benjamins.
Brøcker, K. K., Hamman, M. G. T, Jørgensen, M., Lange, S. B., Mikkelsen, N. H., & Steensig, J. (2012). The grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction: Four phenomena and some methodological considerations. Nydanske Sprogstudier, 42(42), 10-40.
Clayman, S.E., & Raymond, C.W. (2021). You know as invoking alignment: A generic resource for emerging problems of understanding and affiliation. Journal of Pragmatics, 182, 293-309.
Fox, B. (2010). Introduction. In N. Amiridze, B.H. Davis, & M. Maclagan (Eds.), Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders (pp. 1-9). John Benjamins.
Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). Irvington.
Goodwin, C. (1981). Conversational Organization. Interaction between Speakers and Hearers. Academic Press.
Goodwin, C. (1987). Forgetfulness as an interactive resource. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(2), 115-130.
Lerner, G. (1991). On the syntax of sentences-in-progress. Language in Society, 20, 441–458.
Lerner, G. (1996). On the ‘semi-permeable character’ of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and Grammar (pp. 238–276). Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, G. (2004). Collaborative turn sequences. In G. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 225–256). John Benjamins.
Lerner, G. (2013). On the place of hesitating in delicate formulations: a turn-constructional infrastructure for collaborative indiscretion. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational Repair and Human Understanding (pp. 95–134). Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, G., & Kitzinger, C. (2015). Or-prefacing in the organization of self-initiated repair. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(1), 58-78.
Schegloff, E.A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361–382.
Wieling, M., Grieve, J., Bouma, G., Fruehwald, J., Coleman, J., & Liberman, M. (2016). Variation and change in the use of hesitation markers in Germanic languages. Language Dynamics and Change, 6(2), 199-234.
Additional References:
Chevalier, F. H. G., & Clift, R. (2008). Unfinished turns in French conversation: Projectability, syntax and action. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(10), 1731–1752.
