Mechanisms of meaning making in the co-occurrence of pragmatic markers with silent pauses

This study explores the social meanings of unfilled pauses, you know, like, and combinations thereof by comparing the evaluation of speech with these features to speech without them. The comparison is based on a set of perception surveys in which participants listened to manipulated audio stimuli and rated them on a series of scales. Unfilled pauses are evaluated differently from all other features: they are rated high on Status and low on Dynamism. Where significant differences emerge, the pragmatic markers you know, like, and combinations of pauses with these are always rated lower than the guises without. They are most sensitive to personal characteristics in the Dynamism dimension, followed by Conversational Skills, Likeability, and Status. The mechanism that adapts the potential social meanings of linguistic features when they are combined hinges on the social salience of the features in question. Various outcomes are possible ranging from additive to non-additive effects.