VILNIUS PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY Irina Šiniajeva DISCOURSE MARKERS: THEIR FUNCTIONS AND DISTRIBUTION ACROSS REGISTERS Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of MA in linguistics Academic adviser: doc. J. Buitkien ė Vilnius 2005 CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………....3 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...4 PART 1. Introductory Observations 1.1. The concept of discourse……………………………………………………..............7 1.1.1. The spoken and written discourse…………………………………………….10 1.2. The notion of register……………….........................................................................12 PART 2. Discourse markers 2.1. Definition and delimitation…………………………………………………………19 2.2. The place of discourse markers in a sentence/utterance……………………............25 2.3. Discourse Markers and Proposition………………………………………………...26 2.4. Functional domains…………………………………………………………………28 2.4.1. Subjective function of discourse markers…………………...………………..29 2.4.2. The interpersonal (interactional) function of discourse markers……………..30 2.4.3. The textual function of discourse markers……………………………………34 PART 3. Discourse markers across registers 3.1. Dialogue in drama………………………………………………………………38 3.2. Academic prose………………………………………………………………....42 3.3. Legal discourse………………………………………………………….............44 3.4. Newspaper articles……………………………………………………………...46 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………...50 SANTRAUKA…………………………………………………………………………...51 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..52 SOURCES……………………………………………………………………….............53 APPENDIX 2 ABSTRACT The present paper reports the results of the study aimed to investigate the problem of discourse markers, their functions and distribution across the four discussed registers: dialogue in drama (which can be ascribed to spoken discourse), academic prose, legal documents and newspaper articles in the English language. It draws upon the theoretical assumptions of text linguistics on discourse, cohesive devices, the notion of register and its components. The study is based on theories of various linguists proposing different terms and definitions for the discourse marker, on the corpus of occurrences of these linguistic items in the examined sources. The investigation also attempts to examine the functional complexity of discourse markers in cohesive texts. As a result, it was proved that discourse markers play a significant role in the above mentioned four registers and the choice of these linguistic elements depends on the specificity of a register. 3 INTRODUCTION The present study is concerned with the issue of discourse markers as text forming devices in the English discourse. The choice of this topic as an object of investigation was motivated by the fact that, in the first place, the linguistic items subsumed under this title were the last to receive researchers’ attention as text forming or text forward moving devices: a rather lengthy and abundant in investigations history of text analysis for a long time ignored such items as oh, well, you know, I guess, I’m afraid, I mean, etc. or gave them only a cursory examination. Secondly, these items do not comprise a uniformed system. Due to their polyfunctionality, differences in correlation between propositional meaning and contextual meaning as well as other factors, these particles were differently named in linguistic literature and different functions were ascribed to them. For example, Fraser (1993) calls them “discourse markers” and maintains that each of them has a principle meaning, which signals how the speaker intends the utterance to relate to the prior discourse. Trujillo Saez (2003) agrees with Fraser on the name, but gives a slightly different definition of discourse markers as items used to ease the interpretation of utterances. According to Aijmer (2002), they are “discourse particles” functioning as signposts in the communication, facilitating the addressee’s interpretation of the utterance in various contexts. Starting with the assumption that the use of discourse markers indicates effective communication between the author and the reader (the addressor and the addressee), that they belong to the system of devices ensuring text cohesion and coherence and that they are polyfunctional, we have based our research on the following hypotheses : - discourse markers are indispensable in all registers - though some discourse markers can be met across several registers and their functions may overlap, the register itself determines the choice of discourse marker The diverse corpus of discourse markers, their polyfunctionality and the fact that the functioning of these particles across registers has not been studied determined the aims of this research: - on the basis of the existing and available researches on discourse markers we aimed to define the functions discourse markers play in a coherent text; - on the basis of quantitative and qualitative approaches to the obtained data we aimed to reveal distribution of discourse markers in certain registers. 4 The research is based on the analysis of the texts of four different registers: drama, which is considered to be closest to spoken discourse, academic prose, legal documents and newspaper articles. The scope of the research material is fifty pages of each text. The following sources were analyzed: “A Streetcar Named Desire” by T. Williams (drama); “Two-phase Flow Simulation of Plazma-ignited Combustion in an Energetic Fluid Bed” by B. Li and D.Y. Kwok, “Instabilities of Magnetohydrodynamic Waves Driven by the Velocity Anistropy of the Energetic Ions” by Oleh YA. Kolesnichenko and Adam K. Yukhimuk, a number of articles from PhysicsWeb in the Internet (academic prose); Last Will and Testament, Employment Agreement, Sample Revocable Living Trust, Sample Employment Termination Contract and other legal documents available from the Internet (legal documents); The New York Times (issue No. 52). The occurrences of discourse markers were thoroughly counted and presented in tables, followed by the examples of the most frequently used items. The range of functions expressed by the most frequent markers is also presented. In accordance with the basic purpose the paper is divided into three parts: • PART 1 examines some basic notions in text linguistics. It provides an overview of the concepts of discourse, cohesion, textuality, cohesive devices and the notion of register and its components. • PART 2 of the paper gives a closer outlook of discourse markers. It presents points of view of such linguists as Halliday and Hasan (1992), Schiffrin (1987), Blakemore (1987), Fraser (1996), Trujillo Saez (2003) on the definition and delimitation of these particles. Also, the discussion of the functions of these linguistic items in various contexts is based on the points of view of Aijmer (2002) and Andersen (2001). • PART 3 focuses on the distribution of discourse markers in the four above mentioned types of discourse. The most frequent of them are arranged in tables, presenting the number of occurrences and the percental ratio of the distribution. Some of the peculiarities of discussed registers and the functions of discourse markers in them are outlined. The results of the investigation are summed up in the CONCLUSIONS. The theoretical value of the paper lies in the possibility of using its results for further investigation of the specificity of discourse markers and their functions. 5 The practical value of the paper is seen in the possibility of using its material and results in teachers’ practical work. It is notable that non-native speakers of English (e.g. students at Lithuanian schools) should be taught to use discourse markers for coherent speech and writing. In learning to use these linguistic items there are a number of factors that should be taken into account: - how frequently they are used (e.g. however is more frequent than nonetheless ) - whether they generally precede clauses (e.g. so, thus, also ), occur within clauses (e.g. therefore ), or come at the end of the clauses (e.g. too ) - how they are used in relation to particular kinds of text and context (formal, informal, written or spoken) - whether they can introduce or separate substantial blocks of text (e.g. however, furthermore ), or they tend to be used with shorter stretches (e.g. as well ) The results of the investigation might also be used in courses of general linguistics, pragmatics, or specialized courses of discourse stylistics. 6 PART 1. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS Discourse markers as linguistic phenomena have been analyzed and widely discussed by many linguists (Levinson, 1983, Schiffrin, 1987, Blakemore, 1987, Fraser, 1993, etc.). There is a wide range of words that could be interpreted as discourse markers. These are mostly words with little lexical meaning that appear on the periphery of clause structure (Masaitiene, 2003). Discourse markers have important interactive role in discourse as they indicate a relationship between the speaker and the hearer, between the addresser and the addressee. As Schiffrin (1987, 49) writes, “the analysis of discourse markers is part of the more general analysis of discourse coherence – how speakers and hearers jointly integrate forms, meanings, and actions to make overall sense out of what is said”. So discourse markers form a group of linguistic items that are inseparable from discourse and fulfill significant roles in discourse interpretation. Therefore, it becomes relevant to briefly introduce the concept of discourse