Which term refers to the unit of talk bounded by silence?

Which term refers to the unit of talk bounded by silence?

• A. Utterance
• B. Priming
• C. Diphthong
• D. Schwa

Answer: (A)

The unit of talk bounded by silence is an utterance. This term refers to the stretch of speech that runs from one pause or silence to the next, capturing what's produced in one sustained vocal act. It can be as short as a single word or as long as a whole sentence, depending on where the pauses or intonation breaks occur. The key idea is that an utterance is defined by the boundary created by silence, not by the grammatical structure of the sentence.

Diphthong is a vowel sound that slides within a syllable, not a segment of speech bounded by pauses. Schwa is a specific mid-central vowel sound, also not a speech boundary. Priming is a cognitive phenomenon related to how exposure to one stimulus influences response to another, unrelated to how speech is segmented by silence.