THE USE OF FILLERS BY THE STUDENTS OF THE INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASS AT ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF PALANGKA RAYA UNIVERSITY

Fillers are words, phrases, and clauses that are employed to fill in the pauses in utterance. They lack inherent meaning and, if omitted from a sentence, would not detract from the sentence's overall meaning. The effectiveness of pause fillers in speech was a useful tool for understanding preferred communication styles. Knowledge of pause fillers in speech provided a framework for organizing the next sentence or idea to be conveyed. Here is why, this research aimed to describe the types of filler and to find out the most dominant type of filler produced by the Intermediate English Speaking class of English Education Study Program at Palangka Raya University in academic year 2023/2024.
This research used a qualitative descriptive method with content analysis where data collection by using documentation technique. Data analysis was done by indentifying, analyzing, discussing and concluding the types of filler. Data classification and analysis were based on the theory by Rose (1998)
Of the 32 audio speaking conducted by the Intermediate English Speaking class of English Education Study Program at Palangka Raya University in academic year 2023/2024, there were 306 (100%) fillers, with a percentage of Unlexicalized Filler type of 287 (93,8%) and Lexicalized Filler type of 19 (6,2%). From the results of this research, it can be seen that the percentage of filler types that dominate these findings is fillers with the Unlexicalized Filler type, 282 (93,8%). This proved that language could not be separated from the presence of filler words. Fillers could have positive benefits, namely as a language style and strategy to make communication run smoothly, but it could also be the opposite, actually making the language unintelligible, uncomfortable to hear because of using too many fillers. The results of this research showed that too many fillers were produced by the speakers as the subject of the research, so the fillers gave the impression that the speakers were disfluent in speaking. This was because speaking was done spontaneously without any prior preparation by speakers who were also speaking learners who were still at an intermediate level and were not trained to use English to communicate. The results of this research was useful to be implied in the field of sociolinguistics.