Features of spoken Russian

Spoken language is not perfect. Speech typically contains such features as hesitations, false starts, repetitions, and repairs, regardless of language proficiency.

Let's examine some common features of spoken language!

Additional materials:

1

Review the excerpts provided below. They come from learners and native speakers of Russian. Can you tell which statements were made by native speakers and which were made by learners? How can you tell?

Note

You may detect a hint of accent in these recordings. If so, please do your best to disregard them - they are not the focus of this activity! If it helps, read through the transcripts without listening to the audio. Accent is a normal feature of speech, but today, we are more interested in hesitations, false starts, repetitions, and repairs. Based only on those, can you tell which statements were made by native speakers and which - by learners of Russian?

1. Эм, да, эм я сейчас эм смотрю хоккей эм и болею за ... ой, не за Giants, эм Sharks!

Excerpt 1, NS, hesitation.mp3

2. Я тоже поехал э в Санкт-Петербург. И э увидел э известные здания, да, как э Большой театр и канал и музей, да.

Excerpt 2, NNS, hesitation.mp3

3. Тебе понравилась опера? Или книга больше? Что понравилось больше, книга или опера?

Excerpt 8, NS, repair option 2.mp3

4. Я был в Москве эм три меся- э три месяца и э.

Excerpt 4, NNS, repetition.mp3

5. Эм я ездила в Санкт-Петербург и эм там э я поехала в много музеев.

Excerpt 5, NNS, hesitation.mp3

6. А ты бы эм, ты бы хотела э поехать эм, ну, в какие-нибудь другие города России?

Excerpt 6, NS, Repetition.mp3

7. Мне нравилось э э ну, я ел э пельмени, котлеты, борщ и щи, пирожки, да?

Excerpt 7, NNS, false start.mp3

8. Но они эм м. Потому что моя подруга из Сан-Франциско. Поэтому.

Excerpt 3, NS, false start.mp3

9. Эм они были очень красивые. Э мне очень нравится эм исторический -ия исторические здания.

Excerpt 9, NNS repair, option 1.mp3

2

Spoken language has many interesting features, such as hesitations, false starts, repetitions, and repairs. Can you find any examples of these features in the excerpts? Read and/or listen to the excerpts above once again and mark them on your handout. Use the definitions provided below to guide you.

Hesitations / Хезитации

various sounds we make when we pause like hm, uhm, er, ah

False starts / Фальстарты

when someone starts to say something but does not finish saying it

Repetitions / Самоповторы

when someone repeats what they already said

Repairs / Самокоррекции

when someone restates something they already said in a different way

3

Can you think of any reasons why these so-called 'disfluencies' occur when people speak to each other? Discuss with a partner and be prepared to share your thoughts with the class.

Need help?

Some of the reasons why disfluencies can occur are: a) because we need to think about what we will say or 2) remember the information that we are being asked about.

Let's test it out!

Write down three questions for your partner that require them to think or remember something. For instance: What did you eat for dinner yesterday? What did you do on Sunday? What is your favorite city and why?
Ask each other your questions! Check if there are any disfluencies in your partner's response.

4

Now let's talk about planned and unplanned speech.

Can you think of any examples of planned and unplanned speech?
Do you think we will see more disfluencies in planned or unplanned speech? Why?

Let's test it out!

In the previous task, you wrote a list of questions for your partner. If you were a journalist for an important magazine and your partner was a big movie star, they would likely ask to have the questions in advance of the interview - they would likely want to think about their answers beforehand. Let's simulate this situation!

Give the questions you wrote to your partner.
Choose one question from your partner's list. Plan out and practice your response several times.
Now ask your partner the question that they prepared an answer for. Do you think your partner sounds more fluent this time around?

Tip: In certain situations, it may be helpful to 'plan' your speech to sound more fluent. We can plan for many types of situations: class presentations, vlogs and podcasts, job interviews, phone calls to customer service, wedding toasts, and others.

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