On the speaker specificity of hesitation markers

The occurrence of hesitation markers is generally considered to be part of the verbal planning process. It is also a feature which is of potential importance to the forensic application of phonetics if hesitation behaviour could be linked to individual speakers. This study examines a total of eight female speakers on three different days. It can be demonstrated that, even though results vary across sessions, subjects exhibit distinct patterns of hesitation marker usage. This pertains to the number as well as the type of hesitations marker, which makes this feature a potential candidate for forensic investigations.