Discourse management

Two most common disfluencies of spontaneous speech, vowel lengthenings (VLE) and non-lexicalized filled pauses (NLFP) were investigated in the adult-directed speech of eight Hungarian children. Though VLE and NLFP might seem to be similar vocalizations, recent investigations have shown that their occurrences might differ remarkably in child speech and may also change as a function of age. Based on these findings, in the present study the functional analysis of VLEs and NLFPs was performed. It was hypothesized that in child speech the two phenomena have roles not only in speech planning, but also in discourse management, and that they show functional distribution. The analysis provided evidence that VLE is more common than NLFP. VLE often tends to mark discourse events and may play a role in turn-final floor-holding strategies, while NLFP is mostly connected to speech planning, and occasionally, it may also participate in turn-taking gestures, as well.

After learning Newton’s 2nd Law, students in a university modeling-based introductory physics class are asked to imagine a box sliding across a floor and slowing to a stop. Although they’ve had extensive experience with friction in the context of energy, this is their first exposure to friction within the context of force.  They are asked to make different representations for this scenario, including a system schema, and force diagram.  During their small group work, students quickly run into a difficulty:  there are only two interactions with the box (contact, gravitational), so there should only be two forces, yet the box is slowing, which means it must have unbalanced forces in the direction of acceleration.  In this paper, preliminary evidence from a student-led whole-class discussion is presented showing how the group reasons through sharp disagreement in their initial ideas to come to a useful consensus.

In the present paper vowel lengthenings and non-lexicalized filled pauses were studied in the spontaneous speech of children and adults (focusing more on the much less studied phenomenon: vowel lengthening). The results revealed different usage and appearance of lengthenings in the two age groups, therefore, differences in speech skills and strategies can be concluded. LEs and FPs differ mostly in their position in the speech session between the age groups, which has implications regarding different planning strategies of adults and children. We also draw conclusions regarding the methodological considerations in the issue of identifying vowel lengthening supporting a previously formulated conception.