![]() When the speaker is not visible, verbal “signposts,” can be helpful, as they take the role, in part, that nonverbals do. Neutral: I see Mm-hmm Interesting That’s nice. Surprising: No way! For real? Wait, what? Are you serious? Interjections and rejoinders also come to mind-words a listener uses to keep the conversation going and show the speaker she understands and even sympathizes with them for language learners, using them adeptly (with the right syntactic placement, intonation, and timing) may demonstrate further fluency. Understood by several labels, verbal fillers and hesitation markers are some of these universal elements, a type of discourse marker. The French utter eh bien Portuguese have então, ta, pois Japanese えーと ( “eeto”), and なんか ( “nanka”) Spanish – mira, vale, among others. They can be perceived with a range of filters, neutral or positive ones such as creating connection, agreement, and unity or with a more negative view, such as a crutch, tic, parasitic word, or distracting habit. These markers or thinking sounds ( uh, uh huh, huh, hmm, er, like, right?) may be collections of sounds with meaningless lexical value, yet they pack a pragmatic punch. In spoken language, we see that many elements are universal, one being the way speakers listen and take turns in a conversation. If you visualize language as a series of concentric circles, it traverses simple to complex-from the inner layers of phonetics and sounds to syllables, words and sentences, to the outer layer of discourse and pragmatics. Here are some examples: I’m listening to you…ĭoes that make sense? To take over a turn:Īt its simplest level, language is sound (phonetics and phonology) the most layered and complex is discourse and pragmatics. They keep us going when speaking, by helping form thoughts and moving the conversation along. While small and seemingly harmless, verbal fillers can serve mighty syntactic roles. ![]() Verbal fillers and conversational devices range from phonemic (the level of sound) to morphological (words) to syntactic (short phrases), and accomplish the feats of formulating thoughts, listening, politeness strategies, wait time, hedging, softening, and signaling approval or disdain, among others. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times podcast The Daily contends that verbal fillers such as “hmm,” can be a way of “punctuating interviews in ways that reminded you that two humans were having a real conversation,” and to articulate interest without applying judgment, show curiosity, and keep the conversation going.
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