If you observe people’s daily communication and spontaneous speech, you will find an interesting phenomenon. Apart from words, phrases and sentences, human speech contains many pauses, such as “um” and “uh” in English or “呃” and “嗯” in Chinese. Pauses are important indicator of speakers’ verbal planning and self-monitoring of speech production.
Click here for original story, Examining Chinese preschool children’s pausing strategies in story-telling
Source: Phys.org