Nervousness In Speech

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Bachelor of Education majoring English has a great problem with the use of unnecessary filler words like uh, um and more. There are several factors causing speakers to use filler words, according to Mahl (2005), use of fillers are not inherent evidence of nervousness. Rather, speech disturbances in public contexts are symptomatic of the mental energy it takes to verbalize under pressure. According to Mahl and Kasl (2005), more useful indicators of nervousness in speech are hesitant, repeated or partially uttered words. Modern linguists led by Leonard Bloomfield in 1933 call these 'hesitation forms's the sounds of stammering (uh), stuttering (um, um), throat-clearing (ahem!), stalling (well, um, that is), interjected when the speaker is groping for words or at a loss for the next thought.…show more content…
Fillers are used when the speaker is uncertain about his next utterance or he has choices to make in his utterance, but this does not prove that the speaker signals there will be a delay in his speech due to an uncertainty. In fact, it may be hard to determine why a speaker hesitates by using some fillers. Seemingly, considering such a complex process in his brain during the speech, being certain about why he hesitates is not quite possible. If this process is working in the brain of an L2 speaker, things may be even more
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