+01 424 645 5957

+39 347 378 8169

+01 424 645 5957

+39 347 378 8169

In linguistics‏‎, a filler is a sound or word in speaking‏‎ used by someone to show that they haven’t finished speaking yet but are either forming their thoughts into speech or mentally searching for the right word‏.

Common fillers in English are:

  • um – /um/
  • er – /ə/

However, we can also use words (and sometimes phrases‏‎) which don’t add any meaning to what we say but give us time to think:

  • well
  • basically
  • right
  • like
  • you know what I mean

The idea behind these fillers is to either allow the speaker to keep the conversation (i.e. if they did not make a sound the other person might begin speaking and take the conversation away from them) or to complete a conversation without actually making a meaningful statement.

The written equivalent of a filler is probably chewing your pencil.

In the video we see a humorous take on fillers and modern speech. Well worth a look if you have a few minutes free.

Related Articles

ICAL TEFL Resources

The ICAL TEFL site has thousands of pages of free TEFL resources for teachers and students. These include: The TEFL ICAL Grammar Guide. Country Guides for teaching around the world. How to find TEFL jobs. How to teach English. TEFL Lesson Plans....

read more

6 Tips to Make your ESL Classes More Effective

Teaching is undeniably a challenging job, in fact many consider it one of the most difficult careers you could choose. Nevertheless, being a teacher is an enriching experience. Through quality education and effective teaching methodologies,...

read more

0 Comments