Discourse Markers

This study aimed to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse markers in 168 comments made by 28 university students of engineering via an educational forum held as part of a general English course. The students wrote their comments on six topics, with a total of 19,671 words. Their comments during educational discussions were analyzed to determine their use of five metadiscourse categories (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers, and self-mentions), making up interactional metadiscourse in Hyland’s (2004) model. Following descriptive analysis of the use of metadiscourse categories, chi-square tests were used to investigate the possible differences in the whole sample as well as gender-based differences. The findings showed that although female EFL learners used more metadiscourse markers than males did, the differences were minor and hence gender did not significantly influence the use of interactional metadiscourse markers. However, while male and female participants used all types of interactional metadiscourse, how they used them varied. They used engagement markers and self-mentions more frequently than boosters, hedges, and attitude markers. Since metadiscourse markers play crucial roles in mediating the relationship between what writers intend to argue and their discourse communities, the results of the present study have obvious importance in increasing students’ awareness of the way they organize their writings.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching discourse markers (DMs) on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speaking achievement. In the first step, 60 homogeneous intermediate students out of 110 were chosen from a private English language institute and randomly divided into two equal groups, namely an experimental group and a control group. Then they were pretested through a researcher-made speaking test. During the treatment, the experimental group was taught DMs by conversations. Then, they found the DMs in transcriptions of conversations. Also, the researcher used a researcher-made booklet containing the instructional materials related to DMs to be taught to the learners. On the other hand, there was not any direct instruction to DMs to the students in the control group. They only narrated the assigned storybook, and performed conversations by role play. These posters were used based on the related topics of the learner’s textbooks. After the treatment which took 12 sessions, the researcher administered the modified version of the mentioned pre-test as the post-test to find out the effect of the treatment on the participants’ speaking achievement. When the data were collected, one-way ANCOVA was run to analyze them. The results showed that there was no significant difference between experimental and control group in the post-test. Indeed, the findings indicated that teaching discourse markers (DMs) did not have any effect on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speaking achievement.

Discourse Markers (DMs) are pragmatic ties representing the relationship between different concepts in a discourse. As Fraser (2009) puts it, these lexical expressions are free morphemes that signal a special message about or in addition to the basic message. Given the importance of DMs in the written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) learners, this study investigated the effectiveness of two methods of interaction in improving Iranian EFL learners’ use of discourse markers (DMs) in writing compositions. The data were drawn from comparing the compositions of two virtual groups of EFL learners who were exposed to two types of online interactions within which different flipped instructional activities were assigned. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that the learners who engaged in online discussions used higher numbers of DM in terms of both type and token. The results also showed an increase in the length of compositions in the case of those groups who embarked on online interactions and discussions of flipped content. The findings suggest that once supported by the provision of flipped content, online interactions help create authentic opportunities for learner-centered discussions, which lead to an increased authenticity level of the EFL learners’ language production. The findings might also underscore the significance of flipped content and online interactions in developing other aspects of EFL learners’ pragmatic competence.

Communicative and natural processing of language in the world of translation is substantiated through simultaneous decoding and encoding of information in the source and target languages. The researchers analy zed pragmatic strategies and approaches undertaken by the Persian and Kurdish translators of the Quranic discourse marker thumma. The source text corpus was selected randomly and the target text parallel corpora were selected based on purposive sampling. Theoretical perspectives in pragmatics and translation were employed in the analysis of parallel corpora in this investigation. The results revealed that various types and combinations of the Kurdish and Persian temporal discourse markers were utilized by these translators. Moreover, other Kurdish and Persian elaborative, contrastive, and inferential discourse markers were also used in rendering the discourse marker thumma in the Quran. This dynamic approach to the construction of discourse was substantiated based on the realization of different conventions in the construction of discourse in different languages and cultures. This dynamic system in the construction of a proper discourse for the readers is verified based on the application of different theories in discourse analysis and pragmatics and the application of context and text-sensitive strategies in the process of translation. The characteristics, bases, and resources of these dynamic translation strategies are discussed based on pragmatic awareness rising in various aspects of translation education and some suggestions were offered in the application of the findings in syllabus design, translation evaluation, and rethinking of approaches in lexicography.  

The translation of discourse markers in English versions of the Holy Qur’ān can significantly impact the quality of the translated text. Translators face the challenge of ensuring the accuracy and effectiveness of discourse markers when converting the original text into the target language. This study employed a qualitative research methodology to investigate the usage of English and Persian discourse markers in three translated versions of the Holy Qur’ān by Arberry, Shakir, and Yusuf Ali. Focusing on the renowned Surah Al-Baqarah, 286 verses were meticulously analyzed. Descriptive statistics, following Fraser’s (2005) framework, were applied to categorize discourse markers. The study identified various discourse markers falling into four distinct categories: elaborative, contrastive, inferential, and temporal markers. The results underscored the pivotal role of discourse markers in shaping the translation and structure of the Holy Qur’ān. These markers establish a cohesive link between content words and contribute to the overall coherence of Qur’ānic passages. The study recommends that translators exercise careful consideration in selecting and translating discourse markers to maintain the integrity and meaning of the text.