Distribution of Hesitation Discourse Markers Used by Iranian EFL Learners during an Oral L2 Test

Previous st udies o n hesi tation st rategies used by beginner or ad vanced L2 l earners revealed t hat beginners mostly leav e th eir hesitation p auses un filled which ca uses t heir sp eech t o s ound disfluent, a nd advanced learners tend to use various fillers in order to sound like native speakers. The present p aper reports o n a st udy w hich i nvestigated t he distribution of hesitation discourse markers including silen t pauses, silen t pauses and fillers, f illers, and n on-lexical words used b y Iran ian u niversity students in an oral (L2) test. The st udy e xamines t he l ocation of t he discourse m arkers of hesitation acr oss utterances produced by t he participants. The respondents were a group of students registered in the Tertiary English Language Program at a university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The aim was to identify the frequency of all h esitation strategies used in four locations of In itial, Middle, and Final position of the u tterances to find out the most frequent location of hesitation during an oral (L2) test