Hesitation Increases In Relation To Risk in Equal Proportion To Age: A Discussion

Hemmingway rightly said that hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age because we see that hesitation phenomena are ubiquitous in both native and non-native speech production. A qualitative analysis based on a content-processing classification framework reveals the function of hesitations. Hesitations act as overt traces of prospective and retrospective speech-processing tasks which function to forestall errors, and to permit detection and repair of errors once they are committed.

Throughout the chapter we see that hesitations are quality control devices; native and non-native speakers are highly ...