Syntactic and prosodic features of discourse markers used by native and non-native speakers of English

Abstract EN

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the syntactic and prosodic features of discourse markers (henceforth DMs) used by native and non-native speakers of English.

Towards this end, an analysis model has been developed.

It includes some of the DMs used and their functions.

The proposed analysis model also includes the syntactic features such as types and positions of DMs, prosodic features, which incorporate types and functions of tones, and acoustic features associated with the DMs.

The analysis model has been applied to native and non-native spoken discourse samples.

Based on the results obtained from analysing such data, it is concluded that: (1) syntactically, like native speakers, non-native speakers have the choice to use the DMs at any position in discourse, (2) prosodically, non-native speakers tend to be more assertive and affirmative in their use of DMs than the native speakers of English, and (3) when non-native speakers converse with each other, the prosodic features of some of their DMs seem to be nearly the same in terms of pitch change/direction and duration.