Title
Listener perception of naturalness for spoken utterances containing discourse markers um, uh, and like.
Abstract
This study investigated the effect of discourse markers, uh, um, and like in spoken
utterances on the overall naturalness of the utterance perceived by listeners. Two
conditions were explored: um/uh contrasted in sentences of high and low predictability,
and like contrasted in grammatically correct and grammatically incorrect locations within
the sentence. Two listener groups consisted of a skilled group, composed of licensed
speech language pathologists and graduate students in their second year of a Master’s
degree program, and an unskilled group of listeners who had no formal training in speech
language pathology. The results showed that all listeners, regardless of group, rated a
difference in naturalness of sentences in the like condition, with ungrammatical like rated
less natural than grammatical like. Listeners did not rate a difference between uh/um, nor
did they rate a difference between high and low predictability sentences. As a group,
unskilled listeners rated sentences, regardless of condition, as less natural than skilled listeners.
Description
University of Minnesota M.A. thesis. July 2012. Major: Speech-language-hearing sciences. Advisor: Benjamin Munson, Ph.D. 1 computer file (PDF); vi, 52 pages, appendices A-E.
Suggested Citation
Kawatski, Laura Elizabeth.
(2012).
Listener perception of naturalness for spoken utterances containing discourse markers um, uh, and like..
Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy,
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/140520.