Editing Utterance (section)

== Characteristics ==
[[File:Two-people-talking-logo.jpg|thumb|A black and white icon of two people talking to indicate discussion with one another]]An utterance found in spoken or [[written language]], as in a [[Screenplay|script]], has several characteristics. These include paralinguistic features which are forms of communication that do not involve words but are added around an utterance to give meaning. Examples of paralinguistic features include facial expressions, laughter, eye contact, and gestures. [[Prosodic]] features refer to the sound of someone's voice as they speak: pitch, [[Intonation (linguistics)|intonation]] and stress. [[Ellipsis]] can be used in either written or spoken language; for instance, when an utterance is conveyed and the speaker omits words because they are already understood in the situation. For example: A: Juice? B: Please. A: Room temperature? B: Cold.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Griol|first1=David|last2=Molina|first2=José Manuel|last3=Callejas|first3=Zoraida|date=2019-01-31|title=Combining speech-based and linguistic classifiers to recognize emotion in user spoken utterances|journal=Neurocomputing|volume=326-327|pages=132–140|doi=10.1016/j.neucom.2017.01.120|issn=0925-2312|hdl=10016/31613|s2cid=54461308 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Non-fluency features also occur when producing utterances. As people think about what to say during conversations, there are errors and corrections in speech. For example, voiced/un-voiced pauses which are "umm", "erm", etc. in voiced pauses and in transcripts un-voiced pauses are denoted as (.) or (1) relating to the amount of time of the pause. [[Tag question]]s are also a part of non-fluency features; these are used by the speaker to check if the listener understands what the speaker is saying. An example is "Do you know what I mean?" False alerts occur when the speaker is voicing an utterance but stops and starts again, usually to correct themselves.

[[Filler (linguistics)|Fillers]] usually give the speaker time to think and gather their thoughts in order to continue their utterance; these include lexis such as, "like", "and stuff",<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Candea|first=Maria|year=2005|title=Inter- and intra-language acoustic analysis of autonomous fillers|url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00321914/document|journal=Hal|pages=47–52}}</ref> Accent/dialect is also a characteristic included in utterances which is the way the words are voiced, the pronunciation and the different types of lexis used in different parts of the world. [[Deictic expression]]s are utterances that need more explanation in order to be understood, like: "Wow! Look over there!" Simple conjunctions in speech are words that connect other words like "and", "but", etc. Colloquial lexis is a type of speech that is casual in which the utterance is usually more relaxed.<ref name=":02"/>