ABSTRACT
This paper examines (1) the developmental aspects of the frequency and a range of functions expressed by Turkish interactional discourse markers sey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and iste 'you know' in child speech (4-8 year-olds), and (2) age and gender-related changes in the frequency and functional uses of these three DMs in the speeches of 84 Turkish speakers from four different age groups (4-8, 18-23, 33-50, and over 50 year-olds). Except for the children, the analyses were conducted in two different corpora, spontaneous and planned speech. As a result, in child speech, a developmental pattern from local to global in the use of the DMs yani 'I mean', and iste 'you know' was observed. Similarly, the frequency of these two DMs increased with aging among the four age groups in spontaneous speech. However, in planned speech, it was the case for the DM iste 'you know' only. Over 50 year-old men used sey 'uh' more frequently in their spontaneous speech compared to women, whereas 33-50 year-old women produced more iste 'you know' in their planned speech than men. The frequencies of sey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and iste 'you know' were lower in the planned speech condition compared to the spontaneous speech condition in general. Core functions of the three Turkish DMs under focus were described by conducting further analyses. These analyses also revealed that although there are some patterns that apply to all or a group of the DMs under focus, different variables interact in complicated ways resulting in differences in the functional uses of sey 'uh', yani 'I mean', and iste 'you know' by males and females among different age groups in two different speech conditions.
Subject(s)
Language , Speech , Adult , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Middle AgedABSTRACT
The focus of this research is to verify the influence of the age variable on fluent Turkish native speakers' production of the various types of speech disfluencies. To accomplish this, four groups of native speakers of Turkish between ages 4-8, 18-23, 33-50 years respectively and those over 50-year-olds were constructed. A total of 84 participants took part in this study. Prepared and unprepared speech samples of at least 300 words were collected from each participant via face-to-face interviews that were tape recorded and transcribed; for practical reasons, only the unprepared speech samples were collected from children. As a result, for the prepared speech situation, there was no statistically significant difference in terms of age in the production rates of filled gaps, false starts, slips of the tongue and repetitions; however, participants in the over 50-year-old group produced more hesitations and prolongations than participants in the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups. For the unprepared speech situation, age variable was not effective on the production rates of filled gaps. However, 4-8 and over 50-year-old participants produced more hesitations and prolongations than the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups. 4-8-year-old children produced more slips of the tongue than the 18-23 and 33-50-year-old groups, and more false starts and repetitions than the participants in the other three age groups (18-23, 33-50, over 50). Further analyses revealed more extensive insights related to the types of disfluencies, the position of disfluencies, and the linguistic units involved in disfluency production in Turkish speech.