filled pause

{{one source|date=January 2024}}

A filled pause is a non-silent pause in an otherwise fluent speech, where instead of a silent pause there is a filler. The filler can be non-lexical or semiarticulate utterances such as huh, uh, erm, um, or hmm. Fillers may also include words such as well, so, I mean, and like, when used in ways that don't change the meaning of the surrounding speech. {{cite journal |last1=Kosmala |first1=Loulou |last2=Crible |first2=Ludivine |title=The dual status of filled pauses: Evidence from genre, proficiency and co-occurrence |journal=Language and Speech |date=March 2022 |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=216–239 |doi=10.1177/00238309211010862 |pmid=33977820 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00238309211010862 |language=en |issn=0023-8309}}

This particular type of pause is one of several types of speech disfluencies, which also includes silent pauses, "false starts", phrases that are restarted or repeated, and repeated syllables.