Discourse markers

Linguistics

1. Discourse Markers
Discourse Analysis
Level-7

2. Discourse Markers :Hedges
Definition:Adiscoursemarkerisawordoraphrasethatplaysaroleinmanaging
theflowandstructureofdiscourse.Sincetheirmainfunctionisatthelevelof
discourseratherthanatthelevelofutterancesorsentences,discoursemarkers
arerelativelysyntax-independentandusuallydonotchangethetruthconditional
meaningofthesentence.
Discoursemarkerscouldbeusedto‘stabilize’conversationwithdifferent
meaningssothatthereisnovacuum‘period’duringtheconversation,andit
makestheflowofconversationrunsmoothly.
ThetermdiscoursemarkerwascoinedbyDeborahSchiffrininher1988book
DiscourseMarkers.

3. •Discoursemarkersarewordsandphrasesusedinspeakingandwritingto
'signpost'discourse.Discoursemarkersdothisbyshowingturns,joining
ideastogether,showingattitude,andgenerallycontrollingcommunication.
Somepeopleregarddiscoursemarkersasafeatureofspokenlanguage
only.
•TheseDiscoursemarkersarethewordsandphrasesoutsideoftheclause
structure,thatfunctiontolinksegmentsofthediscoursetooneanotherin
wayswhichreflectchoicesofmonitoring,organizationandmanagement
exercisedbythespeaker.
•Discoursemarkersareusedlessfrequentlyinspeech,unlessthespeechis
veryformal.

4. Use of Discourse Markers
Theuseofdiscoursemarkerscouldmakeconversationmoreinteresting,more
understandable,andevenmorepolite,andmorepowerful,thoughitwon’t
changeitsgrammaticalmeaning.
ItcanbereadfromFraser’sstatement:‘theabsenceofthediscoursemarker
doesnotrenderasentenceungrammaticaland/orunintelligible.Itdoes,
however,removeapowerfulclueaboutwhatcommitmentthespeakermakes
regardingtherelationshipbetweenthecurrentutteranceandtheprior
discourse’(Fraser,1988:22).
Fromthatstatement,wecanseethatdiscoursemarkercanmake
conversationeasier,andmoreinterestingtobediscussed.

5. Common discourse markers
Discoursemarkersoftencomefromdifferentwordclasses,such
asadverbs("well")orprepositionalphrases("infact").
Themostcommondiscoursemarkersineverydayinformalspokenlanguage:
Singlewords:anyway,cos,fine,good,great,like,now,oh,okay,right,so,well
Phrasalandclausalitems:youknow,Imean,asIsay,forastart,mindyou.
Itemssuchaswellandrightwerewithinthetop50mostfrequentlyoccurringwords
becauseoftheirhighfrequencyasdiscoursemarkersinconversation.

6. Basic features of Discourse Markers
Hulker(1991:78-79)drawsattentionthattherearefourbasicfeaturesthat
characterizediscoursemarkers:
(1)theydonotaffectthetruthconditionsofanutterance;
(2)theydonotaddanythingtothepropositionalcontentofanutterance;
(3)theyarerelatedtothespeechsituationandnottothesituationtalkedabout;
and
(4)theyhaveanemotive,expressivefunctionratherthanareferential,denotative,
orcognitivefunction.
(5)Forthatreason,theuseofdiscoursemarkerscanmakediscoursetobe
exploredwidely,sincetheuseofthemhasdifferentfunctions.

7. Characteristics of discourse markers, according to Brinton (1996) and Jucker
& Ziv (1998) are:
a. Discourse markers are predominantly a feature of oral rather than of written discourse.
b. They appear with high frequency in oral discourse.
c. They are short and phonologically reduced items.
d. They may occur sentence initially, sentence medially and finally as well.
e. They are considered to have little or no prepositional meaning, or at least to be difficult to specify
lexically.
f. As discourse markers may occur outside the syntactic structure or loosely attached to it, they have
no clear grammatical function.
g. They seem to be optional rather than obligatory features of discourse. Their absence "does not
render a sentence ungrammatical and/or unintelligible" but does "remove a powerful clue" (Fraser,
1988, p. 22 as cited by Brinton, 1996, p. 34).
h. They may be multifunctional, operating on the local and global levels simultaneously though it is
difficult to differentiate a pragmatically motivated from a non pragmatically motivated use of the form.

8. Discourse markers in spoken English
Discoursemarkersarelinkingwordsorphrasesusedinspeakingandwritingthat
directtheflowoftheconversationordiscourseinvariousways.
The following is a comprehensive list of examples.
•To start and to end conversation: So,…Right,…Well,…Now, …Ok,…
•To change topic or return to the topic: By the way/incidentally,… Well, anyway…
•To repeat what I said before: Like I said,… As I say,…
•To continue with the same topic: that reminds me,…
•Ordering or sequencing what we say: In general,…And then,…First (of all)/firstly
•Saying something in another way: Well,…I mean,…In other words,…
•Shared knowledge: You know…You know what I mean…You see,… etc.