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This paper deals with theoretical and methodological questions raised by the study of pauses as indicators of the cognitive processes involved in language production, in particular writing. The study of pauses faces two major issues related to the functional complexity of the language production system. Firstly, the multidetermination of the pause activity is so important that the variations observed in the distribution of pauses can hardly be attributed to a specific component of language production. Secondly, the mere existence of parallel processing suggests that pause analysis shows only part of the cognitive management of language production. Two types of study are proposed : (a) systematic analysis of pause duration and the respective effect of different production components ; (b) additional analysis of two other temporal parameters : articulation rate and writing rate.
