Speech disfluencies in Turkish speech: A psycholinguistic study

The aim of this study is to analyze whether the number of the filled gap, hesitation, prolongation, false start, slip of the tongue, and repetition type of speech disfluencies of the native speakers of Turkish illustrate any important differences based on age, gender, educational background, and speech situation (prepared/unprepared)variables. 84 native Turkish speakers living in İzmir and Eskişehir participated in the study. Four different age groups were comprised of the participants in the ages between 4 and 8 years of age, 18-23, 33-50 and over 50-year-olds. The gender distribution in each group was equalized. In order to analyze the educational background variable, the participants in 33-50 and over 50 age groups were divided into two sub-groups with different educational levels. Via face to face interviews, prepared and unprepared speech samples of at least 300 words of each participant were recorded and transcribed. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test, Mann-Whitney U Test, and Kruskal-Wallis One-Way Analysis of Variance were used for the statistical analysis of the data gathered from 156 tape recordings. As a result, it has been found out that 4-8 year old children produce all types of disfluencies (except filled gaps) more than the other three age groups, and over 50 year olds produce more hesitations and prolongations than 18-23 and 33-50 year olds. It has also been observed that over 50 year old participants' speech disfluency production rates are close to those of 4-8 year old children. In terms of gender variable, it has been observed that gender has no effect on the speech disfluency production of 4-8 and over 50 year olds; however, other than filled gaps and repetitions, 18-23 and 33-50 year old men produce all types of disfluencies more than women in the same age groups. Based on educational background analysis, it has been found out that a higher level of education increases filled gap production; however, for the other disfluency types different factors interact with each other in complex ways and this interaction does not lead to a certain type of result in terms of speech disfluency production. Finally, for the speech situation variable, it has been observed that prolongations, slips of the tongue, and repetitions are more common in prepared speech than unprepared speech for all age groups. Keywords: Psycholinguistics, Speech Production, Speech Disfluencies