Discourse marker

A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. 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-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 in her 1987 book Discourse Markers. 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 studies and resources. Traditionally, some of the words or phrases that were considered discourse markers were treated as "fillers" 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, referential, structural, and cognitive. 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, and coordination between statements. Sequence: "now", "then" Causality: "because" Coordination: "and", or non-coordination: "but" Structural markers indicate the hierarchy of conversational actions at the time in which they are spoken.