A discourse marker is a word or a phrase 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 ''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 include "you know", "actually", "basically", " like", "I mean", "okay" and "so". Data shows that discourse markers often come from different word classes, such as adverbs ("well") or prepositional phrases ("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" or "

expletive Expletive may refer to: * Expletive (linguistics), a word or phrase that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence *Expletive pronoun, a pronoun used as subject or other verb argument that is meaningless but syntactically required ...

s": 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, 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: "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 ** 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 and other languages, often to convey impatience or to urge the listener to act (cf. German cognate ''nun'', meaning "now" in the sense of "at the moment being discussed," but contrast Latin 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