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"Uh, we'll be um right back um after, um this message."
Now does that sound like a pro speaker? It's better to remove ums and uhs right?—so we’ve been told all our lives.
"We'll be right back after this message."
Well not always, according to new research in the journal Developmental Science. [Celeste Kidd, Katherine White and Richard Aslin, Toddlers use speech disfluencies to predict speakers’ referential intentions] When it comes to teaching our toddlers how to speak uhs and ums help the child to focus on words that follow.
Researchers studied children between the ages of 18 and 30 months as they sat on their parents’ lap in front of a monitor. The screen displayed two images. One was familiar, such as a banana, and the other an abstract made-up object. A recorded voice said things like: I see a banana, or There is uh, um, uh a banana. When the voice stumbled, children who were more than 24 months tended to look at the made-up object more often than at the familiar object. Because children who’ve reached that age understand that uhs often precede unknowns.
Not that, uh, you’d want to, uh, riddle your um sentence with, uh, uhs. But on your next trip to the museum with the little one, it’s ok if you point to a skeleton and say, "Oh, that’s an uh, uh um, a velociraptor!"
—Christie Nicholson
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9 Comments
Add CommentThis seems highly logical. I've noticed that when talking to little children, parents often speak simpler and intentionally or unintentionally "um" or "uh" their statements because it helps the baby learn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt actually is logical. Natural languages are full of superfluous words. "Um" and "Ah" are not words in the same way that signifiers in written languages are not words, and serve the same function - they indicate that whatever is connected is to be treated differently.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey also serve another purpose. They add a gap in time where the previous words can be processed and maybe retained, guaranteeing that the important word also has the greatest amount of attention payed to it. Since it is the part that required the deepest thought by the speaker, it is probably the part that needs that attention. It's therefore a way of keeping speaker and listener in sync.
This isn't just true of children. I would never trust a lecturer to understand their subject if they merely recited verbatim rather than reflect on what they were saying. In part because pauses do permit reflection and I start by assuming if a lecturer is unwilling to either do so or permit the time for others to, then they lack confidence in the results. That's not always fair, but it is certainly how they come across to me.
(Which is the reverse of those who feel more confidence in the smooth talker than in the hesitant. In my defense, I wish to call stereotypical examples of said smooth talkers as witnesses - confidence tricksters, used car salesmen, Public Relations guys, advertisers, etc.)
As a member of Toastmasters International, I've put a lot of thought into UMs over the last few years. I would agree that capricious use of 'um' and 'uh' do tend to keep a listener's attention, and I'd say that it works as well on adults as it does on toddlers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur brains works faster than our mouths, and our natural tendency is to throw in these filler words when we are waiting for our minds to choose the right words. This keeps people from interrupting us. But excessive use of these fillers can be very distracting. I've learned that once a speaker develops more confidence in the message he or she is conveying, it's much more effective to keep your listeners' attention by effective use of intentionally silent pauses. TED talks are, with few exceptions, great examples of this.
The study as described above doesn't indicate if it also examined the effect of pauses this way, so I remain unconvinced that the use of 'um' is a virtue (tongue in cheek).
I am quite annoyed that in both the blurb and in the audio portion of the story, that no mention is made of who the "researchers" are. Moreover, the link to the journal is not a link to the actual paper but just the main journal web site. Two suggestions: 1) If you think that the research is sufficiently interesting to talk about, mention who is doing it. Give them a little credit, ok? 2) If you wish to pass on something that your readers might find interesting, then make it easier for them to find out more by more directly linking to the actual research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSloppy.
For anyone who has ever listened to a public speaker, such as Ed Koch, the uhs and ums make him sound like an imbecile.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can understand how pauses or slower speech might help children learn language, but uh when this uh becomes your uh normal mode of speech, you sound like an idiot.
I can help you out with that. The article was published online in Developmental Science on April 14, and can be accessed by individuals with subscriptions through "Early View" here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01049.x/abstract
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndividuals who lack journal access can still get a copy from either me or one of my collaborators, Katherine S. White and Richard N. Aslin. The first link here on the “Research” section of my webpage should do the trick: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/ckidd/research.html
I’d also like to add that I was impressed with the concision and clarity of Nicholson’s reporting here. I know from experience that explaining this work in 10 pages is sufficiently challenging. Jamming the gist into only 60-seconds is quite an accomplishment, I’d think, and likely mandates the omission of many details that one might want to have in a less constrained format.
That said, I understand your frustration, Glock, and that expression about the devil being in the details I find to be especially true in science. So if there are any details missing from the 10-page version of the work that you’re curious about, please know that you are welcome to drop me an email and I’ll do my best to fill them in for you!
Cheers,
Celeste Kidd (Brain & Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester)
I agree entirely. I'm a professional linguist and I'm pretty skeptical of this report -- I'd like to be able to go see if this Scientific American writer misinterpreted the Developmental Science article, or if the article has as profound a misunderstanding of language acquisition as it appears. I wouldn't be surprised. Many people who know nothing at all about the findings of scientific research in linguistics write as if they understood it deeply, and, of course, produce howlers all the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hadn't read Kidd's post before I hastily posted mine, which I regret. I looked at the Developmental Science article quickly and it looks like very good research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, more illogical, unscientific conjecture. Anyone who has had a random conversation with a stranger in a bar or a contentious argument with his boss or wife can tell you that the lack of "um" and "uh" does not indicate a well-rehearsed, smooth-talking con-artist at work. Communication skills are the result of years of habitual language usage - hence British English is not as full of "Fck-you" and "Blw-me" as American English. Nervousness, as well as poorly defined motives, is the cause of hesitant speech. Thousands of signals in the brain converge to compose the words we wish to express, and habit dictates the right-of-way. External factors interfere with the smooth flow of this traffic, for instance, how many of you scientifically-minded but socially-retarded folks can rant on endlessly about a certain theoretical premise, but can only manage a poor attempt at sophomoric humor when face-to-face with a perfectly-formed-in-every-way young woman in a leather miniskirt?
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