Fluency or Disfluency?

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the concepts of ”fluency” and ”disfluency” and argue that the application of the two concepts must be relativized to type of communicative activity. It is not clear that there is a generic sense of fluency or disfluency, rather what contributes to fluency and disfluency depends on what type of communication we are dealing with. The paper then turns to a brief investigation of what makes interactive face-to-face communication fluent or disfluent and argues that many of the features that have been labeled as disfluent, in fact, contribute to the fluency of interactive communication. Finally, I suggest that maybe it is time for a change of terminology and abandon the term “disfluent” for more positive or neutral terminology.