HESITATION MARKERS AMONG NON-NATIVES SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: PRAGMATIC DEFICIT OR VARIANCE?

Abstract

The occurrence of hesitation markers is usually regarded to be part of the verbal planning process. Anytime speakers engage in spontaneous conversation, there is a tendency to disruptions of the speech flow. Paradoxically while hesitation is a fundamental feature of spontaneous conversations and fulfils an important pragmatic function in a second language learning context, it is considered deficient, because it gives an impression of non-fluency, which is not good for the learners. As such, there is a lack of attention given to its study within second language
learning contexts. Thus, this study draws on Hallidyan Systemic Functional Linguistics to investigate the pragmatic function of hesitation markers in non-native speakers (NNS) contexts. The paper argues that since hesitation markers are components of speech processes, either in NNS or NS, it needs to be given serious scholarly attention and de-emphasized the deficiency aspects. To obtain valid data for the NNS speech, I recorded the speeches of plenary session presenters at a conference, of which the researcher was also in attendance, and later transcribed
them. After the transcription, the hesitation markers were categorized into hesitation pauses, fillers, repetitions, and drawls. The findings revealed that non-native speakers (NNS) of English tend to overuse non-lexical markers like pauses, repetitions and drawls, while underusing simpler words like ‘you know, ‘I mean’ or ‘sort of’. And because such tendency will not usually cause a breakdown in communication or some sort of misunderstanding, it could therefore be merely different from that of a native speaker (NS)