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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

This chapter presents the literature review regarding the study about language

elements repetition on students’ academic presentation. The subheading consists

of some overviews about the concept of repetition, stages of repeats, sources of

repeats, types of language element repetition and speaking-oral presentation.

Moreover, some previous studies which are dealing with the research have also

been provided.

Repetition

Repetition has recently been discussed from a number different point of views.

Aitchison (1994) has stated that repetition is a central phenomenon in the study of

language (cited in Bell and Gustafson, 2003). This theory is widely accepted

since repetition is an important source which has been used to investigate other

types of errors or disfluencies such as stutter and hesitation. Regardless as a unit

to detect problem in speech production, repetition is also the most common error

or disfluencies that occur in speech or communication (Cole et, al : 2005). It can

be inferred that repetition is a critical issue to be analyzed in the study of language

production.

Repeats and repetition belongs to two types of problem in speech production,

which are speech errors and speech disfluencies. Although they used different

terms, still, they share similar meaning in terms of its occurrence, which is

repeating two or more words in multiple times. However, repetition is different in

one aspect of conveying its meaning. It underlies based on the theory both speech
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errors and speech disfluencies. In Postma, Kolk, and Povel (1990), speech errors

are unintended, non-habitual deviations from a speech plan (Dell, 1986). Whereas

Fox Tree (1995) affirmed that speech disfluency is a linguistic term that refers to

the occurrence of interruptions or momentary disruptions during the flow of

speech but does not contribute any semantic or propositional content to the speech

( in Enxhi, Hung, Fung : 2012). Then briefly in language production, errors refer

to deviation, meanwhile disfluencies are interruption that do not change any

semantic meaning.

Drawing from such explanations, speakers can appear in a condition to commit a

repetition which either includes in speech errors and speech disfluencies. When

the repetition occurs, speakers can be categorized whether commit to errors or

difluencies. Nevertheless, they are different in terms of contributing semantic or

propositional meaning. The speakers are classified to do error when the repeated

language features affect to change the meaning when executing the speech. In

contrast with disfluencies, the repeated sound, syllable, word or phrase are

categorized as interruptions if they do not contribute any semantic or proportional

meaning when speakers producing the language. Disfluency is briefly explained

as a disruption rather than deviation in uttering a language (Dell, 1986) ( in

Postma, Kolk, and Povel, 1990) . Therefore, repetition might be occurred either

as errors or disfluecies depending on delivering its meaning.

In the types of speech error, Clark and Clark (1977) stated that repeat occurs when

the speakers repeat one or more words in utterance (in Hardini, 2010). When

people talk very fast and spontaneous, this kind of speech errors will happen. As
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described in the following instances “Please close the window / the window!” and

“Don’t put it near the table / the table!,” both constituents contain repetition,

whereas the words or the phrase “the window” and “the table” are repeated twice.

Additionally, Levelt (1983) has proposed his model of disfluency structure which

consists of several parts (in Li and Tilsen, 2015). In Hollingshead and Heeman

(2004), Heeman and Allen (1999) called this as the structure of speech repairs.

The repetition units that occur in the structure of disfluencies are the part of

reparandum. It illustrates in the following description:

he is . um he was a good king

Reparandum ↑ Editing term Alteration

Interruption point

Based on the pattern, each repeated unit such as sound, word, or phrase is the part

of the reparandum, then the interruption point (IP) follows the last repeated unit or

reparandum. As cited in Shriberg (n.d), Levelt (1983) stated in his model of

disfluency structure, that interruption point is mark with a “.”, which indicated the

speakers have realized the incorrectness of the speech. The editing term may not

exist or contain filled pause, unfilled pause or another editing phrase such as “I

mean.” Finally, Alteration that departed from IP is the material in reparandum

that will be repaired.

Repetition in utterances commonly occurs in function words. When fluency

breaks down in spontaneous speech, speakers frequently repeat pronouns and

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conjunctions. Pronouns and conjunctions are types of function words, which a

closed class of words or no new words are added. Alongside pronouns and

conjunctions, the function word category also includes articles, prepositions, and

auxiliary verbs. Then, Au-Yeung, Howell, and Pilgrim (1998) in Howell and

Sackin (2001) affirmed that in general, word repetition happens not only on

pronouns and conjunctions, but on function words as well. As cited in Clark and

Wasow (1998), the tendency of function words occurrences in repeated words has

long been recognized ( Fox & Jasperson, 1995; Holmes, 1988; Maclay & Osgood,

1959; Stenstro,¨m, 1987). They also have stated in their commit-and-restore

model that function words occur more often because of two reasons; Firstly,

function words tend to appear in the first of major constituent and secondly, they

are more accessible and easy to pronounce.

Stages of Repeats

Repetition can occur within several stages which have been divided by Clark and

Wasow (1998). They comprise initial commitment, suspension of speech, hiatus,

and restart of constituent. These stages may appear in various circumstances that

will lead to the repeated words. The processes are demonstrated in these lines:

Initial commitment stage.

Speakers may come in the condition of making an initial commitment when

producing an utterance. Initiating a commitment will lead the speakers commit to

repetition. As considering the utterances 1 “yes, I uh I wouldn’t be surprised at

that,” which the speakers produce the word I as well as start up the constituents.
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Making such commitment is constrained and optional. It is constrained by the

formulation process, which according to Clark (1996, in Clark and Wasow, 1998)

speakers cannot produce the entire utterances after they have formulated it.

Although the speaker is constrained, it is their strategy for certain purposes. In the

end, the speaker produces the same commitment when initiating the clause which

repeating the word “I” after suspending the speech which marked by the pause

“uh.”

Suspension of speech.

In this stage, when repeating a word within an utterance, speakers may suspend

their speech. The suspension of speech is like producing a pause, stopping or

clearing a throat. For example in utterances 2 “because you see I {- uh} some of

our people, {. (clears throat)} who are doing LEs, {- - u:m} have to consider

which paper {.} to do,” the speaker produce four suspensions which are marked in

the curly brackets. However, there is no repetition within the utterances, whereas

considering the utterances 1, the speaker makes a suspension in the middle of the

repeated words that are indicated by the pause “uh”. Thus, speakers may suspend

their speech when committing a repetition in certain utterances.

Hiatus.

As in Clark and Wasow’s (1998) processes of repeats, hiatus is the material

between suspension and resumption. When repeating a word, speakers may also

produce hiatus during their speech, such as an empty or any kind of filler. As in

utterances 1, the speakers produce a filled pause hiatus between the repeated
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words. Another example is in utterances 3 “well I {} I get rather fed up of some of

these youngsters,” which the hiatus is nothing or remaining silent while repeating

the word “I”.

Restart of Constituent.

Repeats arise as the speakers redo to produce the words that they have said after

having interrupted such as uttering a pause for instance. As in example 1, the

speakers may appear to have two options, either restart the constituent (I uh I

wouldn’t be surprised at that) or continue the constituent where they are left off (I

uh wouldn’t be surprised at that). Yet in this stage, repeating the word occurs

when the speaker takes the first option.

Source of Repeats

In disfluency, repetition might be the results of certain strategies under speakers’

control. As Clark & Wasow in Cole et al. (2005) have supported in the commit-

and-restore model of repeated words in English that repetition disfluency occurs

when the speakers make a premature commitment to produce a constituent. This

might be the strategy for holding the floor or informing the addressees about kind

of trouble they have, and then hesitating while the appropriate phonetic plan is

formed. Further, they continuously deliver the language by repeating one or more

words that precede the hesitation.

In particular, Clark and Wasow in commit-and-restore model of repeated words

(1998) have proposed 3 hypotheses about sources of repeats. The hypotheses are

entirely described in the following explanations:

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Constituent complexity.

All other things being equal, the more complex a constituent, the more likely

speakers are to suspend speaking after an initial commitment to it.

Speakers might find it hard when starting to produce major constituents, such as

phrase, clause and sentences. In Clark and Wasow (1998), these constituents have

long been thought as principal units of planning (Bock & Levelt, 1994; Ford,

1982; Goldman-Eisler, 1968; Holmes, 1988; Levelt, 1989; Maclay & Osgood,

1959). The repeats arise when the speakers initiate to produce such constituents

and reflect the planning difficulties. As has been supported by Ferreira (1991);

Wheeldon & Lahiri (1997) that, speakers take longer time to initiate a complex

constituent since it is hard to create articulatory plans for complex than simple

constituent ( in Clark and Wasow, 1998).

This hypothesis offers that the harder speakers plan the constituent, the greater

their grammatical weight is. Based on Behaghel (1909/1910); Hawkins (1994);

Wasow (1997) as cited in Clark and Wasow (1998), that the grammatical weight

can be measured by the amount of information expressed within a constituent,

such as the number of words, phrasal or syntactic nodes. Speakers certainly

cannot produce the utterances before they have formulated it. As the affect,

speakers suspend their speech by producing pause more often before the first

word of the constituents, then most likely just after the first word, and less likely

after that (Boomer, 1965; Chafe, 1979, 1980; Ford, 1982; Holmes, 1988; Maclay

& Osgood, 1959, in Clark and Wasow, 1998). The complexity of the constituents,
 8

therefore, causes the speakers to commit repetition and suspend their speech

afterwards.

Continuity of delivery.

All other things being equal, speakers prefer to produce constituents with a

continuous delivery.

The hypothesis offers some reasons why speakers choose to restart a constituent

rather than to continue it. After causing some disruptions such as suspending the

speech or producing hiatus, speakers commit to restart a constituent in order to

restore its continuity to its delivery (Clark and Wasonw, 1998). Suspending the

speech or pausing indicated that the speakers have not formulated yet the

utterances. Thus, it can be expected that the more careful the speech, the fewer

pauses that the speakers produced (Goldman-Eisler, 1968, in Clark and Wasow,

1998). By considering the example 1 in initial commitment stage “I {uh} I

wouldn’t be surprised at that”, the speaker restarts the constituent after producing

a hiatus “ah” and the delivery is continued when the speaker restarts the

constituent. While if the speaker only continues the constituent after the

suspension, there has a final gap on the delivery, as like “I {uh} wouldn’t be

surprised at that”. Hence, the repetition occurs as the speaker restarts the

constituent in order to restore continuity to its delivery.

Continuity of delivery reflects the notion of Clark and Clark (1977) that is ideal

delivery, as cited in Clark and Wasow (1998). In order to achieve a proper way in

delivering the speech, speakers strive to produce an ideal delivery particularly

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when confronting some problems of disfluencies. As cited in Hardini (2010),

Clark and Clark (1977) clarified that ideal delivery is the way of executing the

sentence or delivering the speech in appropriate and fluent way. Restarting the

constituent which affected to repetition is an attempt to redo the constituent in

order to reach what is called the ideal delivery. In addition, the speakers commit

to continue its delivery for some reasons. The first is because the process of

limitation. Speakers find it easier to produce the constituent from the beginning in

order to help them keep track of where they are. The second and the third are

strategic, that restarting the constituent after the disruption makes the addressees

understand since the constituent is produced completely or the speakers are likely

to present themselves as prepared and thoughtful when they face some

disruptions.

Preliminary commitment.

Some initial commitments to constituents are preliminary, with speakers already

expecting, at some level of processing, to suspend speaking immediately

afterward.

Speakers make a preliminary commitment when initiating a major constituent.

They may suspend their speech afterwards that indicate their planning difficulties.

As paying attention to the utterance 1 in the first stage of repeats “yes, I uh I

wouldn’t be surprised at that,” the speakers appear to start a new major

constituent earlier that begin with “I” after completing it “yes”. Then they

immediately suspend the speech by producing a pause “ah”. Making such

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preliminary commitment affects the speakers to commit a repetition, though

prematurely. According to Clark and Wasow (1998), it is called premature

because speakers unable to continue what they have committed. As supported by

Maclay and Osgood (1959) speakers will initiate a constituent even before they

have completed the lexical decision of what they are going to utter which as the

result they may pause slightly in the middle of the constituent (in Clark and

Wasow, 1998).

The hypothesis proposed that making a preliminary commitment is prompted by

the temporal imperative which is the time that the speakers take in speaking must

be justified to the addressees (Clark, 1996; Goffman, 1981; in Clark and Wasow,

1998). Consequently, the speaker rather takes an action to initiate a constituent

immediately than delays it after completing the utterances. Eventhough they

suspend the speech after initiating the constituent, the speakers do so to inform

their addresses that they are engaged to plan the constituent. By making a

preliminary commitment though prematurely, the speakers can be prevented from

being confused, distracted, uncertain of what they are going to say, or have

nothing to contribute.

Types of Language Elements Repetition

Recognizing utterances whether they are errors or disfluencies in speech

production can be distinguished through observing the language units. Fromkin

(1973) has divided several hierarchies of linguistic element in diagnosing speech

errors, they are phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. Moreover
 11

he affirmed that if these discrete units were not found when producing utterances,

then the error cannot be explained in which segment it involved.

Furthermore, beside Fromkin’s models of language elements in errors, Johnson

(1959) also has classified some classes of disfluencies. In repetition category,

Johnson divided the types into words repetition, phrase repetition, and sound or

syllable repetition, cited in Sobell and Sobell (1972). Derived from Johnson’s

theory, Conture (1982) and Zebrowski (2003) specifically classified all types of

disfluencies into two categories; Between-Word and Within-Word Dysfluencies.

Betweeen-Word Dysfluencies consist of several subtypes, which are interjections,

phrase repetitions, revisions, and multisyllabic whole-word repetition; While

Within-Word Dysfluencies comprise repetitions of individual sounds or syllables,

prolongations of sounds, blocks (silent pause), and monosyllabic whole-word

repetition (cited in Nugraha, 2012).

As it has been applied in determining a stutter disfluency, particularly in

Nugraha’s paper of “A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Stuttering Character in

Rocket Science,” for instance, the present study also implements those categories

of Conture (1982, cited in Nugraha, 2012) and Zebrowski (2003, cited in

Nugraha, 2012) to identify the types of language element repetition that tend to be

produced by the students. However, in regard of analyzing the speech repetitive,

the study excluded some types of disfluencies which remain phrase repetitions,

and multisyllabic whole-word repetition in between-word disfluency and the

repetitions of individual sounds or syllables, and monosyllabic whole-word

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repetition in within-word disfluency class. The elements are then described in

these following explanations:

Between word disfluencies.

The types of between word disfluencies occur when speakers attempt to connect

one word to another in utterances. They are classified into two subtypes which

are:

Phrase repetition.

Phrase repetition is repetition of more than one word that provides no

modification or revision of the content resulted from repeating the words. Simply,

it is a repetition of at least two complete words of the idea. This type takes place

in this sentence “I want to borrow this book – this book today”. The example

repeats the phrases this book two times that includes as type of phrase repetition.

Multisyllabic whole-word repetition.

Multisyllabic whole-word repetition is repetition of a word that contains more

than one syllable when uttering a language. For example “She is really-really

here” and “I’m looking-looking for someone.” These sentences repeat the whole

word two times, such as really and looking that have more than one syllable.

Within word disfluencies.

The within-word disfluencies, which consist of individual sound or syllable

repetition and monosyllabic whole-word repetition are the disruptions that

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produced by the speakers when linking the sound or syllable within the word.

The subtypes are presented in the following details:

Repetitions of individual sounds or syllables.

Both sounds and syllables repetitions are different. Individual sounds repetition

does not refer to individual letters, because sometimes a combination of letters

makes only one sound. For instance “W-w-where is she going?” which repeats

the individual sound “W.” Meanwhile syllable repetition is the repetition in a part

of a word either contains a vowel or consonant sound. The example is shown in

the sentence “Good mor-morning guys!.” It repeats the first syllable of a word

before producing the complete word.

Monosyllabic whole-word repetition.

This type of repetition occurs when a word which consists of a single syllable is

only repeated frequently, such as “He-he is here” and “I- I want the red one.”

This monosyllabic whole-word repetition takes place on those sentences where it

repeats the words he and I twice in a row.

Speaking-Oral Presentation

Speaking is an oral communication that becomes a part of our daily activities. It

is a creative process and an active interaction between speaker and listener that

involve thought and emotion (Underwood, 1997:11) cited in Akhyak and

Indramawan (2013). Through speaking, a speaker can achieve certain goals of

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communication such as sharing and conveying their thoughts, ideas, or even

hopes.

In English language teaching, speaking is one of the four basic skills than

listening, writing and reading. It is categorized as productive skills which closely

related to listening as two interrelated ways of accomplishing communication. As

cited in Torky (2006), that every speaker is simultaneously a listener and every

listener is at least potentially a speaker (Oprandy, 1994: 153 & EL Menoufy,

1997: 9). Moreover Brown (2004) defines five basic types of speaking, which are

imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and extensive. Imitative is a types of

speaking performance is the ability to simply parrot back (imitate) a word or

phrase or possibly a sentence. While intensive speaking is designed to practice

some phonological and grammatical aspects of language. On the other hand,

responsive speaking is interaction at the somewhat limited level of speaking for

example a very short conversation, standard greeting and small talk, simple

comment and request, and the like. Further, interactive speaking is a complex

interaction which sometimes involves participants. The extensive speaking is oral

production which is mostly in the form of monologue such as short speech, oral

presentation, and story telling.

In particular, speaking requires learners not only to know how to produce specific

points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary ("linguistic

competence"), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to

produce language ("sociolinguistic competence") (Nunan,1999:216), cited in

Febriyantin (2011). Moreover, Nunan (1989: 27) classified speaking into

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monologue and dialogue (cited in Torky : 2006). Interestingly, underpinned by

those theories, extensive speaking mainly oral presentation is the part of

monologue speech whereas some interactions are happened. Hence, the speaker

in oral presentation also understands when they are having a talk in every

circumstance since it has been well-prepared generally.

Oral presentation is a short on particular topic given to a seminar or tutorial group.

One or more students are given a chance to offer or to express their views in

accordance to the topic into strong and concise presentation. Then, the other

students join the presentation through discussion.

Therefore, this study investigates a research about the types of language element

repetition by using the students’ academic presentation as the data source. The

presentation is selected because some previous studies have proved that speech

error not only can be found on spontaneous speech, but even also in prepared

speech. Thus, oral presentation is a kind of prepared speech in extensive

speaking.

Previous Study

Regarding the study of speech error repetition, several previous researches have

been conducted. Firstly, the study of “The function of repeating: The relation

between word class and repetition type in developmental stuttering” which was

conducted by Anthony P. Buhr, Robin M. Jones, Edward G. Conture and Ellen M.

Kelly in 2014. It investigated repetitions associated with monosyllabic words in

preschool-age children who stutter (CWS). Specifically, it was hypothesized that

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repetition type should vary according to word class in preschool-age CWS and

children who do not stutter (CWNS). The result of this study, it indicated that

although CWS and CWNS were significantly more likely to produce PWR on

content words, this tendency did not differ between those groups. Further, CWS

and CWNS did not differ in their tendencies to produce PWR versus WWR

overall, but the tendency to produce repetitions on function words was

significantly greater for CWS versus CWNS.

Another research is “Errors in Spoken Production Made by Students in

Microteaching Class of English Education Department in Muhammadiyah

University of Surakarta”. It was proposed by Hendita Leila Rahma in 2015. The

study aimed to describe the types, the frequency, the dominant error, and the

source of error. The research findings showed the dominant error in filled pause

and the major source of error is caused by cognitive and psychological reason.

Beside it, in the paper of Den, Y. (2001), the author investigated the comparison

between word repetition with error repairs, using Japanese data in order to

examine whether or not the prolongation of first tokens in word repetitions,

observed by Den and Clark (2000), is really an effect of the speaker’s strategy.

Then, Japanese dialogues showed the differences between both types of

dysfluency. The results supported the author’s view that prolonged first tokens in

word repetitions are a product of a process under the speaker’s control or

intention. However, this study still needs several points to be accounted for, which

is comparison with other types of disfluencies as well as disfluencies in other

languages in order to make it more reliable.

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Those studies have different topics of analysis. Yet, both of the researches contain

in investigating one of the speech error types, by mean repetition. Those can

support the data and source in investigating this research. In addition, several

types of speech errors have also been examined separately by different researcher,

such as “Hesitation disfluencies in spontaneous speech” by Corley and Stewart,

“Have Disfluency-Type Measures Contributed to the Understanding and

Treatment of Developmental Stuttering?” by Ttir and Ingham, and “Slips of the

tongue: a psycholinguistic study in turkish language” by Altparmak and

Kuruoglu. Hence, this research also conducts an analysis related to the subtypes of

speech error which is repetition, due to the rarely of investigating this type of error

and the phenomenon which commonly still occur among the students of English

Department.