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In:Spanish Sociolinguistics in the 21st Century: Current trends and methodologies
Edited by Cecilia Montes-Alcalá and Miguel García
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 42] 2025
► pp. 33–67

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Chapter 2
Sociolinguistic dimensions of flagging behavior

The case of Spanish-English bilinguals in New York City

 | College of William & Mary
Published online: 15 May 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.42.02var
Abstract
Pauses, fillers (eh, um) and false starts (e.g. recu — recuperación) are often interpreted as ‘disfluency’ in monolingual and bilingual speech. Recent research on these elements (here called ‘flags’) increasingly recognizes their communicative functions, but few studies examine how sociolinguistic factors contribute to their use. This study investigates how social factors interact with flagging among Spanish-English bilinguals. Silent pauses, fillers and false starts in the monolingual discourse of 115 bilinguals are examined and results indicate that ethnonational affiliation is the main predictor of flagging. Results suggest that flagging elements may function as sociolinguistic indices for bilinguals and that bilinguals use flagging elements differently than in bilingual mixed speech and differently than monolinguals. Methodological implications and limitations of the study are discussed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Note on terminology
  • 3.Literature on flagging in speech production
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Informants and independent variables
    • 4.2Interviews
    • 4.3Data
    • 4.4Dependent measures
    • 4.5Analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Overview of flagging in the database
    • 5.2Sociodemographically-conditioned flagging
  • 6.Conclusions
    • 6.1Summary and discussion
    • 6.2Implications
    • 6.3Limitations and future studies
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
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