Discourse Markers as (dis)fluency markers.

Different features can contribute to the fluency (or disfluency) of discourse, among which speech rate, (filled and silent) pauses, repetitions, false starts or discourse markers. In our approach, (dis)fluency is defined as i) componential (fluency can be observed as combinations or sequences of fluencemes), ii) situational (production and perception of fluency is highly influenced by contextual factors) and iii) ambivalent (the same feature can be either fluent or disfluent depending on its local and global context). In this presentation, I will focus on the interaction between two types of fluencemes (Götz 2013), namely discourse markers and filled pauses (Crible, Degand, Gilquin 2017). Discourse markers are generally viewed as contributing to speakers’ fluency (Hasselgren 2002; Müller 2005; Götz 2013), although some are stigmatised as informal, disfluent elements of speech. Similarly, filled pauses, while said to encode hesitations and difficulties, have also been shown to positively help speech production and processing (O’Connell & Kowal 2009). Tentative interpretations of their role as either fluency signals or disfluency symptoms will be drawn from the synthesis of our corpus-based observations. The outcome of this research will help us determine if (certain types of) discourse markers are more prominent as fluency markers than others