在辯論比賽中，辯論新手常無法流暢地表達論點，不知如何運用插話技巧。文獻指出辯士可以在正式的辯論中培養深入思考的能力，並學習如何規劃、呈現辯論演說( Ewbank & Auer, 1941)。然而，鮮少研究探討辯論賽中的語言現象。過去文獻多以成功辯論的通則來教導辯論新手如何組織演講內容(e.g., Ewbank & Auer, 1941; Freeley, 1961; Ehninger & Brockriede, 1978)，並未有具體指引語言策略者。此外，以往關於辯論言談的研究大多只探討政治性辯論 (e.g., Kraus & Davis, 1981; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Chang, 1998; Chen, 2000; Jaworski & Galasiński, 2000; Jin, 2000; Luginbühl, 2007)，其範圍過於偏頗，因而難以廣泛應用於一般辯論。
本研究有兩項研究焦點：其一，探討言語流暢的辯士其語言特徵為何？其二，分析其如何運用插話技巧於辯論賽中獲得發言權？本研究的語料來自於國立清華大學「100年辛卯梅竹賽影音網」，研究對象為國立清華大學正方(三女一男)學生辯士四名及國立交通大學反方學生辯士四名(三男一女)。首先從言語連續性、句子完整性、語速三方面來比較正反方的言語流暢度。其次，以Roger與Schumacher (1983)、Goldberg (1990)、以及Wu (2002)的理論為基礎，試圖提出適用於辯論言談的插話類型分類架構。研究結果有以下四點主要發現：
1. 相較於反方辯士，正方辯士的言語速度偏慢、言論表達較為清楚、且言語較有連續性。
2. 在質詢階段，正方辯士比反方辯士插話次數多，成功打斷對方並奪得發言權次數也較多。
3. 正方辯士技巧性地使用插話，並且在辯論賽中居於主噵地位，壓制住反方。
4. 當辯士在質詢階段中扮演不同的角色時(質詢者或反駁者)，插話的功能也隨之有所差異。
以上幾點，說明了正方在辯論賽中的言語流暢度及插話技巧使用較好。這些結果可由性格具攻擊性、潛在語言能力、準備充分度和經驗較多等因素來解釋。本研究結果可幫助學生辯士認識公眾演說常出現的言語問題，而本研究所提出的插話類型分類架構也可應用於辯論以外的語境分析。

In competitive debates, novice debaters often produce disfluent speeches and do not know how to apply interruptions skillfully. A formal debate provides a chance to the debaters to practice analyzing thoroughly and learn how to plan and deliver argumentative speeches (Ewbank & Auer, 1941). However, studies exploring linguistic phenomena in debates are particularly scarce. Previous studies mostly focused on teaching novice debaters how to organize the content of speech with general theories of successful debate (e.g., Ewbank & Auer, 1941; Freeley, 1961; Ehninger & Brockriede, 1978), student debaters do not have any guidance about speech techniques in debating. In addition, previous research related to debate discourse mostly investigated political debates (e.g., Kraus & Davis, 1981; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Chang, 1998; Chen, 2000; Jaworski & Galasiński, 2000; Jin, 2000; Luginbühl, 2007). The scope is too narrow and thus difficult to be applied to debating in general.
This study has two research foci: investigating the linguistic features of fluent debaters and analyzing their techniques in interrupting others to gain speech floor in a debate. The data adopted in the present study were obtained from the debate contest on the National Tsing Hua University website of “the Mei-Chu Tournament of 2011”, conducted by the affirmative team formed by four college students from NTHU (three females and one male) and the negative team formed by four college students from NCTU (three males and one female). This study first examined speech continuity, sentence completeness, and speech rate to compare the performance of speech fluency between the two teams. In addition, this study also presents a modified scheme for classifying interruptions in debate discourse based on the works of Roger and Schumacher’s (1983), Goldberg’s (1990), and Wu’s (2002) classifications of interruptions. The major findings are summarized as follows.
1. Compared to the negative debaters, the affirmative debaters were better at producing slower, clearer, and more continuous public speech.
2. The affirmative debaters employed more interruptions than the negative debaters, and they also succeed in interrupting the negative debaters during the cross-examination period.
3. The affirmative debaters used interruptions strategically and exerted dominance position over the negative team in the debate contest.
4. The debaters used interruption functions differently when they took different roles in cross-examination periods, that is, as a questioner or a rebutter, in the contest.
The findings demonstrate that the affirmative team performed better in terms of speech fluency and interruptions use. These results can be explained in terms of aggressiveness in personality, potential speech skills, well-preparation, and more experiences in debates. In conclusion, the findings of this study help the student debaters to understand their common linguistic problems when delivering public speech. The proposed classification scheme of interruption types can be used for analyzing various kinds of contexts beyond debates.

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