Types and Frequencies of Dysfluencies in Television Talk-Show Hosts

Tape recorded speech samples of each subject were obtained by taping the one hour television shows of which each subject hosted. The recorded speech samples were transcribed and analyzed according to a modification of the procedure originally described by Johnson (1959). This modification in dysfluency analysis has been reported by Williams, Silverman, and Kools (1968). Each recording was played and replayed, section by section, until the investigator was satisfied that the speech samples had been accurately transcribed and the dysfluencies tabulated according to their proper categories. A week later the tapes were retabulated a second time and the mean number of dysfluencies were used for this study.