DISCOURSE MARKERS L I KE , S OR T OF AND K I N D OF IN THE SPOKEN DISCOURSE OF ADVANCED L2 STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

DISCOURSE MARKERS L I KE , S OR T OF AND K I N D OF IN THE SPOKEN DISCOURSE OF ADVANCED L2 STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

Čurković Kalebić, Sanja

This study explores the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the conversational discourse of non-native speakers of English. Specially, it investigates the functions and positions of DMs like, sort of and kind of in conversations of Croatian speakers of English. The study investigates DMs in the conversations of first year university students of English. The subject group consisted of four volunteers, two females and two males. For every participant two different speech events of about 15 minutes each were recorded. The speakers engaged in two casual, dyadic conversations. The participants were asked to talk as naturally as possible about a casual topic of their choice. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses show pervasiveness of DMs at this capability level and a variety in use. Discourse like, sort of and kind of cover about 8% of the DMs used by the students in this study. Among them like is the most frequent and sort of is the least frequent. Variability has been noticed in the frequency distribution of these markers in the talk of individual students. Like most often occurred before a noun, sort of was the most frequent before a verb and kind of before an adjective. Multifunctionality of these markers has been identified, too. Like and kind of were most often used as approximators and sort of was most often used as a compromiser. Keywords: discourse markers, like, sort of and kind of, non-native speakers of English

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2014

3534