Discourse marker

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Discourse marker
Author(s):	Aino Koivisto (University of Helsinki, Finland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9380-5953)
To cite:	Koivisto, Aino. (2023). Discourse marker. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/Y4C6Z

Discourse markers are linguistic devices such as anyway, but, so, y’know, and like, that operate on the level of discourse or units of talk. Schiffrin (1987) defines discourse markers are “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk” (pg. 31), providing “contextual coordinates for utterances” (pg. 326). In addition to their role in showing discourse connections, markers have been analyzed in terms of their “potential in indexing social relationships” (see Bolden 2006: 663 and the references therein). However, in CA/IL research, one does not often see the term "discourse marker"; more customarily, the term "(discourse) particle" is used (however, see Auer & Maschler 2016; Bolden 2006, 2009, 2016). In an introduction to a volume on turn-initial particles, Heritage and Sorjonen (2018: 3) choose the term "particle" over "discourse marker" to retain the focus on linguistically uninflected elements. It is also noteworthy that the volume Interactional Linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2018) does not mention the term discourse marker.

As a term, discourse marker (also discourse particle, discourse connective, pragmatic marker, pragmatic particle) originates from pragmatics and the discourse analytic tradition. In this view, discourse markers are seen as pragmaticalized elements that originate from different word classes and are best described with respect to their “pragmatic functions” that go beyond sentence grammar (e.g., Aijmer 2002). For Fraser (1999: 946), discourse markers are a “pragmatic class”, where the elements “contribute to the interpretation of an utterance rather to its propositional content”. Typically, scholars have defined discourse markers in relation to their semantic, pragmatic and functional properties (see, e.g., Jucker & Ziv 1998; Schourup 1999; see also Heritage & Sorjonen 2018). For instance, Jucker & Ziv (1998: 3, referring to Hölker 1991) offer a following list of basic features of pragmatic/discourse markers:

1. they do not affect the truth condition of an utterance
2. they do not add anything new to the propositional content of the utterance
3. they are related to the speech situation
4. they have an emotional, expressive function

While the terms discourse "particle" and discourse "marker" (and also "pragmatic marker/particle") are often used interchangeably, they have also been contrasted. The former (particle) can be understood to include only uninflected words, while the latter (marker) is a formally heterogenous class of elements serving different pragmatic functions (Fischer 2006: 4; Heritage & Sorjonen 2018: 3; Schourup 2009: 229). It has also been suggested that the choice of term particle/marker may be related to the language that is studied (particles for elements studied in German, Norwegian, or Dutch; markers for elements studied in English) (Jucker & Ziv 1998).

Additional Related Entries:

• Turn-initial position
• Multi-unit turn
• Particle
• Preface
• Single-unit turn
• Turn-Constructional Unit (TCU)
• Turn-taking

Cited References:

Aijmer, K. (2002). English Discourse Particles: Evidence from a Corpus. John Benjamins.

Auer, P., & Maschler, Y. (2016). 'NU/NA': A Family of Discourse Markers across the Languages of Europe and Beyond. De Gruyter.

Bolden, G. B. (2006). Little words that matter: Discourse markers “so” and “oh” and the doing of other-attentiveness in social interaction. Journal of Communication, 56, 661–688.

Bolden, G. B. (2009). Implementing incipient actions: The discourse marker ‘so’ in English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 974–998.

Bolden, G. B. (2016). The discourse marker nu in Russian Conversation. In P. Auer & Y. Maschler (Eds.), NU/NA: A Family of Discourse Markers across the Languages of Europe and Beyond (pp. 48–80). De Gruyter.

Couper-Kuhlen, E. & Selting, M. (2018). Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge University Press.

Fischer, K. (2006). Towards an Understanding of the Spectrum of Approaches to Discourse Particles. In K. Fischer (Ed.), Approaches to Discourse Particles (pp. 1–20). Elsevier.

Fraser, B. (1999). What are discourse markers?. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 931–952.

Heritage, J. & Sorjonen, M.-L. (2018). Introduction. Analyzing turn-initial particles. In J. Heritage & M.-L. Sorjonen (Eds.), Between Turn and Sequence: Turn-Initial Particles across Languages (pp. 1-22). John Benjamins.

Jucker, A. & Ziv, Y. (1998). Discourse Markers: Introduction. In A. Jucker & Y. Ziv (Eds.), Discourse Markers: Description and Theory (pp. 1–12). John Benjamins.

Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse Markers. Cambridge University Press.

Schourup, L. (1999). Discourse Markers. Lingua, 107, 227–265.

Additional References: