Variability and Consistency in the Idiosyncratic Selection of Fillers in Japanese Monologues: Gender Differences

This study is a linguistic study on idiosyncrasy using speaker classification technique as an analytical tool. The goals of this study are to find out 1) to what extent Japanese filler words (e.g. um, you know in English) carry individual idiosyncratic information; 2) if there are any differences in the degree/nature of idiosyncrasy between the sexes; and 3) what contributes to the identified gender differences, if there are any. Based purely on the individual selection of fillers, we report in this study that 1) speaker discrimination performance was better in the male (ca. 85% accuracy) than the female (ca. 75% accuracy) speakers by approximately 10%, and 2) the poorer performance of the female speakers was due to the larger within– speaker differences in the female speakers than the male speakers. That is, the selection of fillers by female speakers is more variable, speech by speech, than that by male speakers, even under similar conditions (e.g. same type of audience and the same degree of formality). We also discuss that the findings of the current study agree with the previously–reported differences between the sexes in language use.