THE COVERT REPAIR HYPOTHESIS - PREARTICULATORY REPAIR PROCESSES IN NORMAL AND STUTTERED DISFLUENCIES

Self-repairing of speech errors demonstrates that speakers possess a m onitoring device with which they verify the correctness of the speech flow. There is substantial evidence that this speech monitor not only comprises an auditory component (i.e., hearing one's own speech), but also an internal part: inspection of the speech program prior to its m otoric execution. Errors thus may be detected before they are actually articulated. In the covert repair hypothesis of disfluency, this inte rnal error detection possibility has been extended with an internal co rrection counterpart. Basically, the covert repair hypothesis contends that disfluencies reflect the interfering side-effects of covert, pre articulatory repairing of speech programming errors on the ongoing spe ech. Internally detecting and correcting an error obstructs the concur rent articulation in such manner that a disfluent speech event will re sult. Further, it is shown how, by combining a small number of typical overt self-repair features such as interrupting after error detection , retracing in an utterance, and marking the correction with editing t erms, one can parsimoniously account for the specific forms disfluenci es are known to take. This reasoning is argued to apply to both normal and stuttered disfluency. With respect to the crucial question concer ning what makes stuttering speakers so greatly disfluent, it is hypoth esized that their abilities to generate error-free speech programs are disordered. Hence, abundant stuttering derives from the need to repea tedly repair one's speech programs before their speech motor execution .