A discourse marker is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...

or a

phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...

that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, discourse markers are relatively

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

-independent and usually do not change the truth conditional meaning of the sentence. Examples of discourse markers include the

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...

''oh'', ''well'', ''now'', ''then'', ''you know'', and ''I mean'', and the discourse connectives ''so'', ''because'', ''and'', ''but'', and ''or''. The term ''discourse marker'' was popularized by

Deborah Schiffrin Deborah Sue Schiffrin (May 30, 1951 – July 20, 2017) was an American linguist who researched areas of discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, producing seminal work on the topic of English discourse markers. Born and raised in Philadelphia, ...

in her 1987 book ''Discourse Markers''.

Usage in English

Common discourse markers used in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

include "you know", "actually", "basically", "

like In English, the word ''like'' has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, filler, and quotative. Uses Comparisons ' ...

", "I mean", "okay" and "so". Data shows that discourse markers often come from different word classes, such as

adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...

("well") or

prepositional phrases An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...

("in fact"). The process that leads from a free construction to a discourse marker can be traced back through

grammaticalisation In historical linguistics, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (such as affixes or p ...

studies and resources. Traditionally, some of the words or phrases that were considered discourse markers were treated as "

fillers In processed animal foods, a filler is an ingredient added to provide dietary fiber, bulk or some other non-nutritive purpose. Products like corncobs, feathers, soy, cottonseed hulls, peanut hulls, citrus pulp, screening, weeds, straw, and cere ...

" or " expletives": words or phrases that had no function at all. Now they are assigned functions in different levels of analysis: topic changes, reformulations, discourse planning, stressing, hedging, or backchanneling. Yael Maschler divided discourse markers into four broad categories:

interpersonal The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

referential Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

, structural, and

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

. * Interpersonal markers are used to indicate the relationship between the speaker and the listener. **

Perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

: "look", "believe me" ** Agreement: "exactly", or disagreement: "I'm not sure" ** Amazement: "wow" * Referential markers, usually conjunctions, are used to indicate the sequence,

causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...

, and coordination between statements. ** Sequence: "now", "then" ** Causality: "because" ** Coordination: "and", or non-coordination: "but" * Structural markers indicate the

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

of conversational actions at the time in which they are spoken. These markers indicate which statements the speaker believes to be most or least important. ** Organization: "first of all" ** Introduction: "so" ** Summarization: "in the end" * Cognitive markers reveal the speaker's

thought process In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...

** Processing information: "uhh" ** Realization: "oh!" ** Rephrasing: "I mean"

Examples in other languages

Another example of an interpersonal discourse marker is the

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

marker ''nu'', also used in

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

and other languages, often to convey impatience or to urge the listener to act (cf.

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

cognate ''nun'', meaning "now" in the sense of "at the moment being discussed," but contrast

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

etymological cognate ''nunc'', meaning "now" in the sense of "at the moment in which discussion is occurring"; Latin used ''iam'' for "at the moment being discussed" (and many other meanings) and German uses ''jetzt'' for "at the moment in which discussion is occurring").Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2009)
Hybridity versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns
In ''Journal of Language Contact'', Varia 2: 40–67, p. 50.

Usage in English

Examples in other languages

See also

Notes

Further reading