Disfluencies in conversation: a comparison of utterances with and without metaphors

Abstract:

Disfluencies are pervasive in conversations and commonly regarded as indicative of cognitive difficulties. However, they have rarely been examined in utterances with metaphors, which are considered to be more cognitively challenging than those without any metaphors. In this paper, we investigate the occurrence of filled pauses and self-repairs in conversational turns with and without metaphors, across various word counts. Results showed that metaphor presence and word count contributed significantly to the probabilities of filled pauses and self-repair. Notably, there was a significant interaction between metaphor presence and word count, highlighting the combined cognitive demands elicited by using metaphors and producing longer utterances as key factors influencing disfluencies in spontaneous conversations.

Research areas:

• Dialogue
• Repair
• DivCon

Year:

2024

Type of Publication:

In Proceedings

Book title:

Proceedings of the 28th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue - Full Papers

ISSN:

2308-2275