I, em, wonder, err, I em I was, I mean I was sort of wondering if, you know, you'd, em, you'd like, I mean, you wouldn't mind coming out to the err, to the cinema with me, err, sometime, if you, err, you are not too, em, busy, you know. (Wu, 2001, p.7)
Other instances of fillers signaling the speakers have to stop to think about what to say next (as cited in Clark, 1977, p.268--270) are illustrated in the following sentences.
John would like -- ah, carrots.
John would like, well, carrots.
According to James's analysis (1972, 1973a, b; as cited in Clark, 1977, p.268-- 270), each filler above refers to the word carrots. The ah in the first sentence indicates that the speaker had forgotten and has just managed to remember what it was that John would like. The well in the second sentence indicates that the speaker thinks that carrots is only an approximate description of what John would like.
Interrupting
Besides having functions to fill the pause and to hesitate, fillers also have a function to interrupt. Fillers do not have special meanings, but they are used for interruptions, such as uh, err, ehm, ee, well, and so forth (Stenstrm, 1994, p.73). According to Jordan (2001, par.2), fillers are used to interrupt when someone in conversation wants to utter different topic or start a new topic when the other speakers talk about some topics. Maynard (1989, as cited in Fujita, 2002, par.1) adds that fillers interrupt the speech cognitively or productively (language production-based fillers). The following is the example taken from Stenstrm (1994, p.73).
A : ... well his manner appealed to me . B : Mm
A : Yes. *I . I*
B : *Emm I can see that* if you didn't *ee- get on with it*
A : *Uh, yes quite some people* em Beryl Martin for instance.
