Editing Term
Fillers can also function as an explicit editing term in an utterance. According to Baalen (2001, par.8), editing term means to correct the speech error of the speakers. Thus, the speaker is aware that s/he has made a speech error so s/he wants to correct it. For example:
(It's not) um they're not sure whether they're selling now or in a few months. (as cited in Baalen, 2001, par.7)
I mean, um, ehm, uh, huh, ee, etc can be used to indicate speaker's awareness of the speech error followed by her/his attempt to correct it. Fillers' function as editing term also indicates that the speaker does not want to give up his or her speaking turn yet and is trying to avoid interruptions from another participant by immediately correcting him or herself (Baalen, 2001, par.8).
Accroding to DuBois (1975; as cited in Clark, 1977, p.270) I mean and
well signal distinctly different errors speakers are about to correct:
I really love -- I mean, despise -- getting up in the morning.
I'll be done immediately -- well, in a few minutes.
I mean in the first sentence is used for correcting an out-and-out mistake in wording, one that would have left the utterance with a significantly wrong meaning, and well in the second sentence is used to soften a claim the speaker decides is too excessive. In each correction, speakers replace certain old words with new ones, indicating that the old words had been misplanned. Typically, this means editing one word, but sometimes it means editing more than one (DuBois, 1975; as cited in Clark, 1977, p.270).
In a nut shell, those two types and those seven functions of fillers would be identified in the spoken interaction by the first and the seventh semester students of the English Department based on the explanation described above. In short, fillers have two types that is silent pauses and filled pauses (lexicalized and unlexicalized filled pauses) and fillers have seven functions that is filling the pause, hesitating, interrupting, holding a conversation turn, empathizing, mitigating, and editing the term.
Review of Related Studies
