This study examines filled pauses and prolongations in Mandarin Chinese,
Russian, and Hebrew by comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers to
identify both universal and language-specific disfluency patterns. Data were
collected from monologues produced by monolinguals and two bilingual
groups: Russian-Hebrew speakers who acquired both languages in early
childhood, and Mandarin Chinese-Russian speakers who learned Russian
later as a second language (L2). Analyses focused on the frequency and
types of disfluencies. Monolinguals showed similar disfluency rates across
languages, suggesting some universal patterns. Early bilinguals mirrored
monolingual patterns in both languages, likely due to balanced early
exposure. In contrast, Mandarin-Russian bilinguals exhibited higher
disfluency rates in L2-Russian, likely due to increased cognitive load during
speech planning. Additionally, they produced unique filled pause types not
found in monolinguals, reflecting cross-linguistic transfer. These findings
highlight how factors such as language proficiency, language exposure onset,
and typological differences shape disfluency patterns in bilingual speech.