Abstract
There are two types of click sounds that have been studied in linguistics. The first are those that form part of the consonant inventory of certain African languages, such as Zulu and Xhosa. In these languages, clicks are used phonemically. The second group of click sounds exist in many - if not all - languages, but they are used paralinguistically, that is, they convey pragmatic and discursive functions. For example, a click can convey exasperation, surprise, or the idea that the speaker is searching for what to say. Although these latter clicks are common, it is not clear to what extent speakers are aware of them. Vigil and Pinto (2020) found that English speakers are hardly able to detect paralinguistic clicks in stretches of semi-spontaneous speech. The present study uses the same paradigm and stimuli in an online setting, and tests both native English speakers and multilingual speakers of English and one or more click languages. The results show that people who grew up speaking a click-based language are better than English speakers at spotting some of these paralinguistic clicks.