I know this has been discussed before but my search skills are weak. Is there a term for words used to fill speech that don’t actaully contribute to the message being communicated? As in:
So, you know, I went to the bar and, like, totally chatted up this cute boy.
A quick look at Wiki says it could be an Interjection, a Speech Disfluency, or a Filler word.
I just heard the tail-end of an NPR segment the other night and the person being interviewed referred to them as self-interrupters. He said that they occurred in every language and that they are used to prevent others from interrupting while we think about what we are trying to say.
I think I shall call them ‘Interjectors or filler words’! Thanks so much, I’m writing a manual on transcribing and I needed a section title. Cheers!
You might also want to consider discourse particle
I’ve always heard of them referred to as filler words. Interjections tend to be either proto-sentences or closer to an ejaculation, characterized by an exclamation point in written language. (That sounds so wrong… but I couldn’t think of a better way to put it…)
ETA: but interjection has become a larger group of words and phrases and no long is purely ejaculations and proto-sentences.
In linguistics, words that add nothing to the meaning of the sentence are known as expletives, whether they’re profane words or not. In common English, that sense has been overtaken by the sense of a swearword, whether it adds meaning to a sentence or not.
If middle school has taught me anything, Interjections are not the same as filler words.
Interjections would be “No way!” “Radical!” and “Awesome!”
First off, see above.
Second, an ejaculation (a word or mini-sentence) followed with the characteristic exclamation point is a type of interjection, but it is not the only type of interjection.
The example they give on their site is of the word well. An example would be “Well, I never would have thought this conversation would have continued so long.” In that case, well is both an interjection and a filler word.