Speaking Disfluency Among EFL Learners at Soran University

Abstract

Disfluency in spoken language is unavoidable. Utterances in everyday speech are replete with such phenomena as conversational repair, repetition, filled pauses, hesitation, and others. Disfluency is frequently thought to result from problems with speech planning, preparation, and cognitive load. Disfluency is an inherently interactional phenomenon, and in this vein, it has received little attention, if any. By implementing the principles of interactional linguistics, the current study investigates disfluency in interaction among EFL learners at Soran University. The method that is made use of is the qualitative method. For data collection, a semi-structured interview was used in which thirty students from the English department/Faculty of Arts/Soran University participated, whose ages ranged between 22-26 years old. Methodologically, the paper examines disfluency in light of the participants' perspectives to avoid the uncalled-for intricacies that have been associated with the phenomenon in previous research. The results showed that the following patterns recur among the EFL earners: repetition, prolongation, silent pause, pre-verb, and repair. Filled pauses, in particular, were realized as the dominant type of disfluency as compared to the other disfluency patterns.