The Study of Pauses in Oral Production from the Perspective of Language Proficiency

Abstract

This study analyzed the pauses of 20 EFL learners’ monologue recordings. Results indicate the group average of pause frequency is higher in the low-level group, which is manifested by the pause frequency at syntactic boundary. The group average proportion of silent pause duration between sentences is higher in the high-level group. The oral output of low-level group features smaller language units, more frequent times of pauses(mostly at non-syntactic boundaries), while the high-level group has longer language units, less frequent times of pauses and more silent pauses between sentences. The group average of pause frequency at non-syntactic boundaries of students' oral production is negatively correlated with foreign language proficiency, and the average proportion of silent pause duration between sentences is positively correlated with proficiency.