Analysis of discourse markers in interviews

Abstract EN

Discourse markers are words and phrases that help to develop ideas and relate them to one another.

Most of them are formal and used when speaking in formal context or when presenting complicated information in discourse.

They contribute to discourse cohesion and coherence.

They express different relationships between ideas.

Without sufficient discourse markers in any discourse (especially in interviews) a discourse would not seem logically constructed and the connection between the different utterances would not be obvious.

Also, using too much of them, or using them unnecessarily, can make a discourse sound too heavy and 'artificial'.

They are important, but must only be used when necessary.

This paper investigates discourse markers as one of the functional types of insertion in English.

It analyzes discourse markers in interviews according to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions.

This shows that the formal nature of interviews discourse requires variety and almost all the types of discourse markers frequently.

It is also shown that discourse markers fulfill a number of discourse and interpersonal functions, which may contribute greatly to the coherent flow of the discourse.