Fillers Used by English Department’s Students of State University of Medan

Abstract

Society does not only need to develop linguistic competence but also appropriate communicative competence in communicating foreign languages. Speaking foreign languages is not easy, sometimes people pause during speaking. In fact, many spontaneous speakers of various languages have pauses in speaking that are taken when needed. This phenomenon is commonly called a filler. The objective of this research to evaluate reasons for the use of fillers by English department’s students. This research was conducted by descriptive qualitative design as methodology of research. The data are fillers used by English departments’s students in the form of the lexical empty (sound), words and phrases. The researcher as the key instrument is voice recorder. The result of this research found All the functions in this research used by English department’s students, they were hesitating (16 times), empathizing (11 times), editing term (14 times), mitigating (4 times) and time-creating (5 times).