L1–L2 PAUSING: DISTRIBUTION AND DURATION OF SILENT PAUSES IN URDU AND ENGLISH

Authors

  • Saira Zahid Department of Applied Linguistics, Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan, Basic Sciences and Humanities, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Faisalabad Campus, Pakistan. Author
  • Muhammad Asim Mahmood Department of Applied Linguistics, Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan. Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63878/jalt1233

Abstract

Most evidence on L1–L2 pausing comes from monologic tasks (picture/video narratives; computer prompts); here we examine dialogic conversation, where turn-taking and planning pressures differ. We compare the frequency, duration, and placement of silent pauses in Urdu (L1) and English (L2), analyzing 108 minutes of conversation from 18 speakers. L2 English shows more frequent and longer within-ASU pauses, whereas L1 Urdu shows more boundary-aligned pausing. These patterns support a placement-sensitive disfluency model in which within-ASU pauses index linguistic encoding demands and between-ASU pauses index conceptual planning.

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Published

2025-09-14

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 3 (2025): Journal of Applied Linguistics and TESOL (JALT)

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.