Introduction
The process of learning a language
(whether it is a native or a foreign language) takes a lifetime to master. The
path to mastering a language is filled discourse markers. My research includes
two respondents (Lera and Pavlo) answering questions in an interview setting as
well as observing natural conversations they have with each other and myself.
Both respondents in this article learned Russian and Ukrainian as their first
and second languages before learning English. Inspired by the work of Lakoff
and Holmes, this work is meant to evaluate the manner in which men's and
women's speech differ. The purpose is to
accurately evaluate their usage of discourse markers, such as um/uh.
Methodology/Data Collection
The respondents that were chosen for
this study share several similarities. Lera and Pavlo are citizens of Ukraine.
Pavlo comes from L'viv, which is located in western Ukraine near the border
with Poland. Lera comes from Crimea, which is the autonomous republic in
southern Ukraine, via Kiev (the country's capitol city). Both respondents are
22-years-old, and in their first year of studying at the University of
Minnesota. They speak Russian, Ukrainian and English fluently. Each respondent
comes from a middle-class family in major cities, thus allowing them to each
begin learning English in elementary school. Feeling a need to improve their
English communication skills, they both attended tutoring sessions and
discussion groups. The only variable is the respondents' sex—Lera is female and
Pavlo is male. I selected to study this group of respondents due to my
connection with Ukraine. I taught English in Ukraine for approximately two
years between January 2008 and August 2010. The many positive experiences that
I shared with Ukrainian people has motivated me to continue my interactions and
partnership with them.
My method of selection was
non-random sampling from a University of Minnesota student group named USSR
(Union of Students Speaking Russian). Lera and Pavlo were the only two
Ukrainians that I met during a Small World Coffee Hour event, where every other
week the USSR group (either in part or wholly) assemble. The implementation of
non-random sampling was instituted because there was not a large enough group
of Ukrainians to randomly select two respondents.
The nature of my data collection was
spoken data. I selected this type of data collection because I wanted to
examine their usage of discourse markers in speech. I had contemplated also
examining their writing styles, but deemed it of no significance because in
their writing they are taught to purposefully avoid discourse markers. If one
were to search for discourse markers in written data, it may be more difficult
to collect data in a perused, edited text. Thus, spoken data provides a more
informal, open medium to observe the usage of discourse markers. The majority
of the spoken data that I have collected has come from a formal, face-to-face
interview format. I implemented the interview format as a means of generating
data in English. Without the prompting questions in English, respondent would
gradually change what they were saying into Russian.
The first respondent that I sat down
with was Pavlo. We were at Ricardo's apartment with a small group having dinner
together. Several members of our group needed to leave to buy additional
products at the store. I was left in the living room of the apartment with both
of my respondents. I told them both that I was writing a paper about the life
of foreign exchange students at the University of Minnesota. It was a
requirement for me to ask a few questions to hear their general impressions.
Initially the idea was met with excitement. Then, Pavlo asked whether we could
do this in Russian. At this point, I had to insist it be in English considering
it was for an English class. When I took out my cell phone to record the
conversation, the atmosphere in the room seemed to change and Pavlo began to
look nervous. Throughout the interview, with myself and Lera in the room, he
avoided much eye contact and frequently was glancing at the phone to see how
much time had elapsed. Before the interview with Pavlo had concluded, and I
could switch my attention to Lera's response to the questions, we were
interrupted by the return of the other party members.
When I was able to sit down with
Lera, several days later, the setting was different. We were sitting in my
living room discussing her university back in Kiev. It seemed to be a perfect
time to discuss her impressions of her life and university in Minnesota. She
was drinking tea and working on her computer as I asked her questions.
Initially, while discussing Kiev, she was more relaxed. In a similar way with
Pavlo, when I took out my cell phone to record her responses, she became more
nervous in her responses. An interesting observation arose in the way which
each respondent handled the nervousness of having their third language
recorded. Pavlo's reaction to the nervousness he felt was to provide an answer
to the questions as quickly as possible. Lera's style starkly contrasts with
Pavlo's as Lera began to speak more slowly and carefully.
As aforementioned the linguistic
variable that I will be looking for is the usage of discourse markers, such as um/uh, which are pragmatic
variables. Other discourse markers that were used by the respondents were: like, well, yeah, kind
of, I don't know, actually, and anyways. Upon
listening to the original interviews and examining the recorded data and
transcription, it was remarkably noticeable how Pavlo used discourse markers (um, and uh) far more often than Lera. Whereas both respondents used the
word like on an equal scale. Although
um and uh are two different discourse markers, they appeared to
be interchangeable in their pragmatic function. The reason I chose to research
the usage of um/uh is because they seemed to be more noticeable
in the initial data collecting process.
Statistical
Analysis
Usage of um/uh
in total word count
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Word Count
|
Percentage
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
720
|
1 in 144
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
1119
|
1 in 27.29
|
Usage of um/uh
in time segments:
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Time
|
Percentage
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
8 minutes
|
Once every 96
seconds
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
7 minutes, 15
seconds
|
Once every
10.61 seconds
|
Pragmatic
Functions:
There are
five different features which I have identified in the usage of um/uh discourse
markers:
1.
Focusing
Focusing
is a technique which draws attention to a certain aspect of what the respondent
is trying to communicate.
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Total ~
Focusing
|
Frequency
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
3
|
60.00%
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
29
|
70.73%
|
Examples:
♠
“I'm studying because
I, um, transferred from the University in Ukraine – National University
of Kiev.” ~ Lera
♠
“In Russia and
Ukraine, it’s not – they don't give you enough, um, knowledge.” ~ Lera
♠ “So, when I finished high school, um, I had-I have
really cool friend, and she-so she started to study, um, English as her
major, like interpretation or translation.”
~ Pavlo
2.
Translating
Allowing
brief time to evaluate word choice as the respondent attempts to adhere to
local vernacular and regional word choices.
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Total ~
Translating
|
Frequency
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
1
|
20.00%
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
8
|
19.51%
|
Examples:
♠
“It’s, um, it’s
difficult to receive any knowledge of language from the teacher.” ~
Lera
♠ “She was not eligible for applying for this scholarship
because she, uh, she was like a, uh, she was a senior.” ~ Pavlo
♠ “Um, when I – so as
you know – in Ukraine we learn English starting from the very first form and
then to the, um, uh, the eleventh grade—until, uh, we finish the high school.” ~
Pavlo
3.
Error
Correction
As
the respondent is speaking their sentence, there is a break, filled with um/uh,
that allows for the respondent to quickly evaluate their speech to make sure it
follows basic Standard American English grammatical forms.
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Total ~
Error Correction
|
Frequency
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
0
|
0.00%
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
2
|
4.88%
|
Examples:
♠ “My, um, mine scores were 96.” ~ Pavlo
♠ “Yeah, so, I do – I do, uh, I really do like
it.” ~ Pavlo
4.
Conjunctions
This
feature is shown to be a conjunction between two different clauses.
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Total ~
Focusing
|
Frequency
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
1
|
20.00%
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
0
|
0.00%
|
Example:
♠ “So, it wasn't too difficult to be away from my parents, um,
it can be difficult to be away from my culture, I guess.” ~ Lera
5.
Split
Infinitives
The
insertion of um/uh in between the two parts of an infinitive.
|
|
Um/Uh
|
Total ~ Focusing
|
Frequency
|
|
Lera
|
5
|
0
|
0.00%
|
|
Pavlo
|
41
|
2
|
4.88%
|
Examples:
♠ “Where they ask you questions … things that you wrote in
your essays and after this you got to do is to, um, pass TOEFL
test.” ~
Pavlo
♠ “It really inspired me to, um, start to improve my English.” ~
Pavlo
Interpretation
Looking
through the data it becomes striking how different the results of this research
are. It comes as no surprise, however, that the most common pragmatic function
is “focusing.” When analyzing this pragmatic function, each respondent uses
focusing to account for upwards of 60-70% of their total usage. Thus,
percentages show a similarity which is not reflected in the actual word count
ratio. Lera's total um/uh word count was only 5; whereas Pavlo's usage
was upwards of 800% higher, totaling 41 counts. When looking at the amount of
times Lera used um/uh as focusing (60%) in comparison to the amount of
times Pavlo used um/uh as a focusing function (70%), there is
statistically little variation. However, Pavlo's um/uh is far more
noticeable than Lera's. I defer that Pavlo's use of um/uh as a focusing
function is used because his rate of speech is much quicker than Lera's mindful
responses. In order to keep listeners focused on the hasty ideas that he is
trying to express, Pavlo utilizes um/uh as focusing expressions.
Along similar lines, when Pavlo is
speaking, he uses um/uh as a pragmatic function to translate more times
than Lera. Lera does it once which contributes to 20% of her um/uh
usage, where Pavlo uses this function 8 times for 19.51% of his total. Although
the percentages would indicate Lera uses this function more frequently,
transcripts actually shows Pavlo more frequently displays occurrences of using um/uh
in combination with 2-3 second pauses as a means to translate his thought.
Another feature of interest in my
research was that I had originally thought that um/uh would be used as a
means to correct errors in the grammatical structure of sentences. I found out
through transcribing the data that this hypothesis was erroneous. In fact, Lera
did not utilize this function at all, and Pavlo only used this function twice.
It was surprising to find that what I thought that I heard in normal
conversation seemed not to be there when I began to transcribe and analyze my
data. The same occurrence appeared with my “Split Infinitives” pragmatic
function. I expected to reveal more instances of split infinitive usages of um/uh.
Instead, I found that Lera did not utilize this function at all, and, again,
Pavlo only used it twice. Both the lack of findings for “Split Infinitives” and
“Error Correction” were a surprise to me, because I had expected to see their
occurrence on a more regular basis, considering each respondent may disregard
different grammatical structures when answering my inquiries.
Problems
with Research
One difficulty that presented itself
with my research was scheduling conflicts. Because of the busy atmosphere of
the end of this Spring semester, it became a challenge to meet with my
respondents for further conversations. Whenever I was able to see Lera, she was
with several other native Russian speakers which made it difficult to keep the
conversation freely flowing in English. Pavlo's internship, volunteering, and
studying kept him incessantly preoccupied with other duties. I was only able to
document one more recording with Pavlo, but we were again with other people.
Perhaps he was more relaxed with friends as we walked around campus discussing
architecture and the end of the school year, but one external factor that
caused havoc for my research was the wind. Most of the hour and a half of time
that I could record him in a relaxed atmosphere was rendered inadmissible
because the quality of the recording was greatly compromised by the strong
gusty winds into the recorder. Although, from hearing distinguishable clips,
his use of um/uh discourse markers appeared not to change much.
As for Lera, we have had several
other discussions, but none of them were recorded. However, I observed a
difference in her demeanor and speech. She was more relaxed and conversational
when the audio recorder was absent. This relaxation caused a more steady and
rapid verbal flow of her thoughts. Although data was not recorded, the increase
of the like, um/uh, yeah and okay discourse markers
was audibly noticeable. As for having Pavlo and Lera talk with each other, the
idea's first attempt rendered nonproductive. While discussing the topic of the
University of Minnesota and Lera's upcoming graduation, their language switched
to Russian. It has proved difficult to persuade them to speak only in English.
Another difficulty that I
encountered with my research, apart from time and availability of my
respondents, was eliminating one of my initial discourse markers—like. I
spent time and energy researching the discourse marker, only to discover that
the pragmatic functions were inaccurate and I was counting merely the amount of
times they used like. The problem with all of this was more so my own
misunderstandings of like as a discourse marker and like as
another part of speech. In the end, it proved to be a more inconclusive aspect
of my research because each of my respondents used the word like
equally. It made the findings of um/uh in their speech look more
remarkable.
Conclusion
I found that the data which I
collected and analyzed was quite contrary to my initial hypothesis. I expected
to find that Lera's and Pavlo's frequent discourse markers would point to Lera
adhering to Lakoff's findings, as well as the respondents would both use um/uh
as a means of correcting their grammatical errors when their thoughts were
spoken aloud. On the contrary, when discussing the usage of um/uh in the
speech of Lera, her usage was far less than Pavlo's. That is not to say,
however, that she uses fewer discourse markers than he does. My research only
proves that, in the studies that I have conducted about the um/uh discourse
markers used by Ukrainian students studying at the University of Minnesota,
Pavlo displayed a stronger disposition towards using these discourse markers.
My research also concludes that the focusing function was the most prominently
used, which means that um/uh are not a means to determine that my
respondents are unsure of their answers. In fact, this study shows that they
are rather aware of the intent of their discourse markers and the functions
that each carry.
In further analysis of this topic, I
would like to expand my focus of discourse markers to include more than just um/uh,
perhaps I would identify each discourse marker used by each respondent. Also,
if I continue to look at the differences in the usage of discourse markers
between each sex, it would be beneficial to expand the number of respondents in
order to collect a wider range of data. The small respondents pool caused my
data to be too specified, and unable to draw conclusions for more generalized
research. Also, if to continue researching the use of English spoken by
Ukrainians, I would like to consider code-switching. Much of the data I
collected included different variations of switching between English and
Russian.
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