disfluency

plural disfluencies · alternative dysfluency

1. countableuncountableLack of fluency in speech; any of various breaks, irregularities, and non-lexical vocables that occur within otherwise fluent speech.

   To the long list of everyday afflictions that includes dry, itchy skin and restless leg syndrome, add another: speech disfluency.

   2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013

   2 more examples

   Siegel considered at some length, without resolving it, the apparent paradox between traditional views of stuttering and modern demonstrations that punishment (i.e. contingent aversive stimulation) tends to decrease disfluency.

   2012, Donald K. Routh, Judy Lynne Perlman, “The Clinical Uses of Punishment: Bane or Boon?”, in Donald K. Routh, editor, Learning, Speech, and the Complex Effects of Punishment, →ISBN, page 198

   Disfluency is a relatively recent construct. Not until the last century did fluency with the specific meaning of ease of speaking become a subject of widespread interest; and only in the mid-twentieth century did its corollary, the absence of such a facility, become the focus of systematic empirical study.

   2022, Simon Williams, Disfluency and Proficiency in Second Language Speech Production, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 1