Filler (linguistics)

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In linguistics, fillers are sounds or words that are spoken to fill up gaps in utterances. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; in English, the most common filler sounds are "er" (British spelling, "uh" in American spelling) and "um".

Usefulness of Fillers

Fillers perform many useful linguistic tasks...

Criticism of Fillers

Many have criticized using fillers, particulary in public speech...

Filler Words in Different Languages

• In Italian, e is one of the most common fillers
• In Mandarin Chinese speakers often say zhege zhege zhege ("this this this")
• In Japanese, e or to or some combination e...to are often used; also the filler word nani ("what") is common
• In Spanish, fillers are called muletillas; the most common are este ("this") and o sea ("I mean"). [link]
• In French, euh is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi ("what"), bah (or ben), tu vois ("you see"), and eh bien (roughly "well", as in "well, I'm not sure")

A common pitfall among language learners is using fillers from their native tongue. For example, "Quiero una umm.... quesadilla". While less of a shibboleth, knowing the kadigans or placeholder names of a language (e.g. the equivalent of "thingie") can also be useful to attain fluency, such as the French truc: Je cherche le truc qu'on utilise pour ouvrir une boîte ("I'm looking for the thingie that you use to open up a can")

See also

• Interjection
• Discourse marker
• Speech disfluencies

External links

• [Why do people say "um" and "er" when hesitating in their speech?], New Scientist, May 6 1995

 

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