A discourse marker is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

or a

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

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. F ...

. 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 (constituenc ...

-independent and usually do not change the truth conditional meaning of the sentence. They can also indicate what a speaker is doing on a variety of different planes. Examples of discourse markers include the

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle 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 s ...

''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 in her 1987 book ''Discourse Markers''.

Usage in English

Common discourse markers used in the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

include ''you know'', ''actually'', ''basically'', ''like'', ''I mean'', ''okay'' and ''so''. Discourse markers come from varied word classes, such as

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

(''well'') or

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

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

grammaticalization Grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a linguistic process in which words change from representing objects or actions to serving grammatical functions. Grammaticalization can involve content words, such as noun ...

studies and resources. Discourse markers can be seen as a “joint product” of grammaticalization and cooption, explaining both their grammatical behavior and their metatextual properties. Traditionally, some of the words or phrases that were considered discourse markers were treated as

fillers In animal feed, a filler is an ingredient added to provide dietary fiber, bulk or some other non-nutritive purpose. Products like corn fiber (corncobs), fruit fibers (pulp), rice bran, and whole grains are possible fillers. Purpose As source ...

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 In social psychology, an interpersonal relation (or interpersonal relationship) describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more people. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are ...

, referential, structural, and

cognitive Cognition is 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 syste ...

: ''look'', believe me ** Agreement: ''exactly'', or disagreement: ''I'm not sure'' ** Amazement: ''wow'' * Referential markers, usually conjunctions, are used to indicate the sequence, causality, and coordination between statements. ** Sequence: ''now'', ''then'' ** Causality: ''because'' ** Coordination: ''and'', or non-coordination: ''but'' * Structural markers indicate the

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, 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 ...

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 ** Processing information: ''uhh'' ** Realization: ''oh!'' ** Rephrasing: ''I mean'' In her book on discourse analysis,

Barbara Johnstone Barbara Johnstone (born March 24, 1952) is an American professor of rhetoric and linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in discourse structure and function, sociolinguistics, rhetorical theory, and methods of text analysis. ...

called discourse markers that are used by speakers to take the floor (like ''so'') "''boundarymarking'' uses" of the word. This use of discourse markers is present and important in both monologue and dialogue situations.

Examples in other languages

Another example of an interpersonal discourse marker is the

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

marker ''nu'', also used in

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

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

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

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

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

etymological cognate , meaning 'now' in the sense of 'at the moment in which discussion is occurring'; Latin used for 'at the moment being discussed' (and many other meanings) and German uses 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. The French phrase can indicate 'a smooth or a more abrupt discourse shift.'

Usage in English

Examples in other languages

See also

Notes

Further reading