How consistent are non-native speakers in their usage of filler particles when talking to native speakers?
Malte Belz, Miriam Müller, Christine R. Mooshammer · 2023
This paper investigates the intra-individual consistency in the production of filler particle frequencies and forms.The data consist of five non-native (L2) mid to high proficient speakers of German with English as first language.Each L2 speaker converses with five different German native (L1) speakers in task-based dialogues.The results show that the L2 speakers are rather consistent in the use of FP frequencies and forms across the five dialogues, with no obvious alignment for static measures such as mean FP frequency or the proportion of vocalicnasal and nasal FP forms.When tracing their relative FP frequencies over the course of the dialogue, some L2 speakers show convergence to L1, while others remain persistent.The data thus partly undergird the speaker-specificity of filler particles.It remains open whether observed convergence between L1 and L2 speakers in this data is due to alignment or happening coincidentally.