page 231 SPEECH DISFLUENCIES AND SELF-REPAIRS IN MALAYSIAN

ABSTRACT: The investigation of non-pathological disfluencies occurring in spontaneous speech offers important insights into the process of speech production. This paper studies the patterns of disfluencies, and self-repairs found in Malaysian English (ME). It also examines how these relate to the theory of speech monitoring proposed by Levelt (1983, 1989). More specifically, the aim of this study is to ascertain the extent to which time intervals between error-to-cut-off and cut-off-to-repair confirm theories of pre-articulatory monitoring and repairing. The theory that there is pre-articulatory speech monitoring supports short error-to-cut-off intervals. However, there are still questions as to whether a repair is ready before speech is interrupted, as suggested by short cut-off-to-repair intervals. In order to determine the types of self-repairs and the length of the error-to-cut-off and cut-off-to-repair intervals in ME, the conversational turns of 67 callers to a radio programme were analysed. Hesitations, such as silent pauses, filled pauses and prolongations, and instances of self-repairs (repeats, deletions, substitutions and insertions) were coded and analysed. Error-to-cut-off and cut-off-to-repair intervals were acoustically and auditorily measured. The results support the presence of pre-articulatory monitoring. There was also a significant number of short cut-off-to-repair intervals in the self-repairs examined, which challenge the notion that repair-planning takes place only upon interruption