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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelHesitations generally occur when speakers talk or deliver a speech. It
happens because hesitations appear unintentionally. Yet, the occurrence of these
disfluencies can be irritating because they can hamper the process of
communication and affect both the fluency of the speech and the message
delivered. In this research, I want to investigate the factors which might affect the
number and length of hesitations such as the complexity of a sentence, the
difficulty of a topic, and the level of a speaker?s proficiency.
In doing this research, I employed qualitative and quantitative method.
The data were obtained by recording the speeches of the students of semester four
whose speaking 3 grades were A/B+ and C/C+ and the students of semester eight
whose speaking 6 grades were A/B+ and C/C+. Before I recorded the speeches, I
prepared ten questions, which consisted of five easy topics and five difficult ones.
After the recording, I transcribed the data, identified, classified and finally
analyzed it.
From the findings, I noticed that the complexity of a sentence, the degree
of topic difficulty, and the proficiency of a speaker influence the number and the
length of hesitations in their sentences. I found that the speakers who produce
more complex sentences hesitate more often and longer. I also found that their
speech is also filled with pauses more frequently and longer when they talk about
difficult topic. Finally, I also noticed that speakers who have higher proficiency
hesitate less often and shorter than those who have lower proficiency.