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The Acquisition of English Contrastive Discourse Markers by Advanced Russian ESL Students The Acquisition of English Contrastive Discourse Markers by Advanced Russian ESL students
... A surge of studies on DMs followed the theoretical contributions of researchers such as Schiffrin (1987), Fraser (2012Fraser ( , 2015, and Blakemore (2002Blakemore ( , 2006. These studies varied in focus, ranging from investigating DMs in English and comparing them to other languages, including Arabic (e.g., Alhuqbani, 2013 Warsi, 2000). Overall, the findings of these studies concluded that EFL/ESL learners face difficulty in employing ECDMs in their writing by misusing and overusing them. ...
... The majority of the studies in the literature have examined how foreign learners of English employ English DMs in their essay writing (e.g., Alenizy et al., 2024; Al-khazraji, 2019; Huneety et al., 2023) and how to judge the acceptability of these markers in contexts (e.g., Alhuqbani et al, in press;Warsi, 2000). Translators and would-be translators come across many of these DMs as they translate from one language into another. ...
... Second, they were also requested to select one ECDM from a set of three to connect S2 with S1. The examples in these two forms (see appendix B and C) were collected from previous studies (e.g., Alhuqbani, 2009;Fraser, 2005Warsi, 2000) and proved to be reliable and valid in these studies due to their clarity, simple wordings and directions. However, the principal researcher of this study modified some of the wordings of these utterances to suit the cultural context of this study without altering their pragmatic content and meaning. ...
This paper examined the effect of gender and language proficiency on the translation and judgments of ten contrastive discourse markers: but, however, nevertheless, instead, rather, in contrast, on the other hand, yet, still, on the contrary. The participants were 77 Saudi undergraduate males and females majoring in English and Translation. They were given two tasks, with 15 items in each task. Overall, the results showed that the participants were uncertain of the meaning of English contrastive discourse markers when translating them into Arabic, except but, which received the highest score. Almost all of the participants translated but as lakin or wa’lakin. However, the majority of them failed to translate those markers in combinations, reflecting their lack of knowledge of such combinations. The results also revealed that the participants were uncertain about their judgments of these markers. Their noticeable inconsistency of what makes a discourse marker suitable in one context, but not in the other, reflects the participants' inability to cope with its core meaning. As for gender, female participants scored better than their male counterparts in just four out of 30 constructions, indicating that gender produced limited effect on the participants’ performance. Finally, language proficiency only correlated with three constructions, pointing to the possibility that it has no effect on translating and using contrastive discourse markers. The findings demonstrated the importance of teaching discourse markers to undergraduate English major students to improve their skills of communication, translation and academic writing. The paper also highlighted the need for further research.
... In addition, the results suggest that those markers and those markers' functions in the L2 which are also available in the first language will be acquired first with relative use. Warsi (2000) examined whether non-native speakers of English know how to use CDMs appropriately to link S2 and S1 and make the sequences coherent, and how they differed in their usage of CDMs from that of native speakers of English. The subjects were 10 Russian speaking advanced English speakers and 10 native speakers of English. ...
... To sum up this section, these reviewed studies and other similar studies such as those of Hays (1992), Müller, (2004) and Trillo (2002) focused on ESL learners who were still in the acquisition process of English, and didn't relate their use of DMs to their English proficiency level. In addition, these studies, except that of Warsi (2000), investigated the use of DMs in ESL essays without telling them that their ability to use DMs was under evaluation. ...
... This is very much attributable to the absence of solid and coherent research on the acquisition of English DMs in general and CDMs in particular by learners of English as a second and/or foreign 27 27 27 the language. Studies on second language acquisition, for the most part, have focused on the development of learners' acquisition of linguistic forms (phonological and syntactic) that are introduced by an instructor or text and that are the explicit focus of attention in the language classroom (Hellermann & Vergun, 2007;Warsi, 2000). In addition, the few studies which recently have attempted to investigate the acquisition of DMs by foreign learners of English focused on learners who were in the process of acquiring English, and hence had limited English proficiency, which may not yield a full picture of their acquisition of DMs. ...
This study examined the Arabic-English speakers' acquisition rate of certain contrastive discourse markers (CDMs): but, however, nevertheless, despite that/this, in contrast, instead, on the contrary, and on the other hand. The subjects were 26 Arabic-English speakers and 25 English native speakers. They were given a judgment test consisting of 30 multiple-choice items. In addition, a computerized English proficiency test was administered to the Arabic-English speakers. The results showed that Arabic-English speakers were far behind their English native counterparts in their correct scores on the CDMs judgment test. Unlike native speakers of English, the Arabic-English speakers lacked the knowledge of the core meanings of the English CDMs, the restrictions they impose on their occurrence between the two sequences they link, and their possible occurrences. Language experience did not contribute to the Arabic-English speakers' performance on the English CDMs judgment test.
... The second line of research on discourse organizers investigates whether there is any difference between the language productions of native and non-native speakers of English, and beginner and advanced-level learners, in terms of the use of such expressions (e.g., Asik and Cephe 2013;Hellerman and Vergun 2007;Warsi 2001;Zhao 2013). In this regard, Warsi (2001) found that native English speakers use discourse markers frequently, whereas some advanced Russian ESL learners don't know how to use them in certain contexts which is attributed to their proficiency level, exposure to the target language, and language transfer. ...
... The second line of research on discourse organizers investigates whether there is any difference between the language productions of native and non-native speakers of English, and beginner and advanced-level learners, in terms of the use of such expressions (e.g., Asik and Cephe 2013;Hellerman and Vergun 2007;Warsi 2001;Zhao 2013). In this regard, Warsi (2001) found that native English speakers use discourse markers frequently, whereas some advanced Russian ESL learners don't know how to use them in certain contexts which is attributed to their proficiency level, exposure to the target language, and language transfer. Hellerman and Vergun (2007) also found that adult learners of English with no previous formal English language instruction use few discourse markers. ...
Previous research shows that discourse organizers facilitate the students’ comprehension of lectures. Importance markers are considered a crucial part of discourse organization. It is not clear, however, whether understanding of importance markers boosts the students’ understanding of lectures. Besides, it is not clear whether using corpora and concordancers in the classroom aids their comprehension. To this end, a total of 206 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students (108 males and 98 females, aged from 18 to 23), studying medicine, humanities, engineering, and basic sciences at three major universities in Iran, whose command of English was pretested on a piloted test of Preliminary English Test (PET), were selected for participation in the study. They were then equally divided into a control and experimental group. Learners in the control group attended 15 one-hour general English training sessions (five weeks, three sessions a week) without specific focus on identifying organizational features of lectures, while students in the experimental group attended 15 one-hour sessions (five weeks, three sessions a week) of instruction on importance marking in English academic lectures, using the British Academic Spoken English corpus (BASE) with a concordancer, namely Sketch Engine. Presentation and practice tasks which were developed based on authentic concordance lines which were derived from the BASE corpus were used for the experimental group. Analysis of the scores of participants on a comprehension test of important points of English academic lectures showed that concordancer-based instruction of importance markers enhances EFL learners’ identification and comprehension of important points in English academic lectures.
... Rezultati, nadalje, govore u prilog tome da se jedan od uzroka nekompetencije u području uporabe engleskih diskursnih oznaka krije u interferenciji materinskog jezika i prijenosu njegovih retoričkih obilježja (Ying, 2007;Xing, Wang i Spencer, 2008). S obzirom na tvrdnju da netočna uporaba diskursnih oznaka može prouzročiti pogrešne interpretacije kod recipijenata i znatno smanjiti komunikacijsku kvalitetu pisanoga i usmenog diskursa (Martinez, 2004;Warsi, 2007;Ying, 2007), predlaže se sustavnija prezentacija tih jezičnih elemenata u nastavnim materijalima, osmišljavanje vježba čitanja i pisanja na engleskom jeziku koje će učenike, sukladno njihovoj dobi i jezičnoj kompetenciji, postupno i ciljano voditi prema usvajanju diskursnih oznaka na sintaktičkoj i semantičkoj razini te češće izlaganje učenika autentičnim engleskim tekstovima različitih žanrova i stilova. Kao preduvjet za realizaciju navedenih nastavnih smjernica potrebno je provesti dalja znanstvena istraživanja na mnogo većim uzorcima ispitanika različite dobi i različitih jezičnih kompetencija koji su, k tome, govornici različitih materinskih jezika i imaju različita kulturna naslijeđa. ...
Despite the abundance of research focused on the theoretical determination of discourse markers, empirical studies of these linguistic units that are crucial to, among other things, developing pragmatic language competence, are rather scares in the context of applied linguistics, particularly with respect to their use in foreign language writing. The paper provides a critical review of relevant discourse marker research in EFL writing.
... Writing has been proven to be the most difficult language skill even for native speakers [21]. It, therefore, seems reasonable to suppose that inappropriate use of discourse markers in a second language could, to a certain extent, hinder successful communication, leading to a misunderstanding between message sender and receiver [22]. Effective use of discourse markers has been seen as a central component in academic writing [23][24][25] and lack of it has been regarded as a sign for novice and apprentice L2 writers [24][25][26]. ...
... The coherence model developed by Schiffrin [7], It seems that the above approaches mostly aimed to distinguishes four planes and these planes are show that the role of DCs is mainly to minimize the classified according to different levels of coherence listener's or readers processing effort by limiting the functions that DMs play, namely exchange structure, range o f interpretive hypotheses he or she has t o (including adjacency-pair like question and answer), consider; thus, DCs contribute to efficiency i n action structure (where speech acts are situated), communication [11]. states that although the different in the use of DCs in the target language will be more terminology and labels used to define DMs may vary, it is successful in both verbal and non-verbal interaction than important to recognize the specific characteristics that those who are not [12]. ...
Many studies have investigated discourse connectors. However, researchers are still grappling withthe term in terms of its definition and classification in particular. Many researchers use the term discoursemarkers (DMs) while others have used terms like linking words, connectives, discourse operators and discourseconnectors to refer to the same idea. This paper attempts to better define the term and propose a classificationof DCs in written discourse. As is evident from the literature, researchers are unable to agree on the bestdefinition for the term connectors or what is generally known as discourse markers. Researchers in the fieldhave put forward a few different definitions and descriptions of what connectors are and their function inlanguage and some researchers have also developed their own taxonomy and classification for connectors.After reviewing research conducted on connectors, we decided for purposes of this paper to use the term‘discourse connectors’ mainly because we believe these connectors function to link one portion of informationto another one in a text and that while the term discourse marker is a suitable term for spoken discourse, itsdefinition and classification may vary for written discourse. We define DCs as words and expressions that canbe accommodated within the text to join one sentence with another sentence or one paragraph to anotherparagraph or even one idea to another. Finally, we attempt to offer a comprehensive definition and classificationof discourse connectors with the aim to provide a better understanding of what DCs are and how they function,with variation from previous reviews of the term.
According to many research findings, the presence of discourse markers (DMs) enhances readers' comprehension of the texts they read. However, there is a paucity of research on the relationship between knowledge of DMs and reading comprehension (RC) and the present study explores the relationship between them. Knowledge of DMs is measured through examining the subjects' recognition of DMs. To carry out the research, 86 Iranian sophomores majoring in English took a test of DMs alongside a RC test. The correlation between their scores on the two tests was calculated using the software SPSS. The analysis revealed that there is high correlation between the students' knowledge of DMs (i.e., their correct recognition of discourse markers) and their reading comprehension (rxy = .71). Moreover, high correlation carries a strong regression power and scores on a test of DMs could be a good indicator of the test takers' reading ability.
To computationalists investigating the structure of co- herent discourse, the following questions have become increasingly important over the past few years: Can one describe the structure of discourse using interclausal relations? If so, what interclausal relations are there? How many are required? A fair amount of controversy exists, ranging from the parsimonious position (that two intentional relations suffice) to the profligate posi- tion (that an open-ended set of semantic/rhetorical re- lations is required). This paper outlines the arguments and then summarizes a survey of the conclusions of approximately 25 researchers -- from linguists to com- putational linguists to philosophers to Artificial Intelli- gence workers. It classifies the more than 350 relations they have proposed into a hierarchy of increasingly se- mantic relations, and argues that though the hierarchy is open-ended in one dimension, it is bounded in the other and therefore does not give rise to anarchy. Evi- dence for the hierarchy is mentioned, and its relations (which are rhetorical and semantic in nature) are shown to be complementary to the two intentional relations proposed by the parsimonious position.
Discourse markers are expressions such as now, well, so, however, and then, which signal a sequential relationship between the current basic message and the previous discourse. The purpose of the present paper is to propose that discourse markers be considered a well-defined pragmatic category within the grammar of a language.A framework for sentence meaning is presented within which discourse markers are analyzed as a class of commentary pragmatic markers. The claim that marker meaning is that of the expression when used as part of sentence content (e.g., as an adverbial) is rejected, and a minimal pragmatic core meaning for each discourse marker is proposed. Finally, discourse markers are distinguished from other types of commentary markers, from vocatives, interjections, and from expressions such as oh, y'know, I mean, and because, often treated as a part of this group.
Review article discussing Schiffrin's (1987) "Discourse Markers"
Recent proposals for the analysis of the equivalents of Hebrew 'aval,and 'ela’ (in particular, English 'but’ and French 'mais’) are reviewed and it is suggested that they cannot provide a satisfactory account of the full range of uses of 'aval’ and 'ela’ as exemplified in this paper. It is further argued that in order to account for the linguistic facts of 'aval’ and 'ela’ we must allow for a broader definition of 'utterance meaning’ which would include both semantic and pragmatic notions, as these are traditionally classified. Aval,is shown to operate on two different layers of meaning, while 'ela’ always operates on the same layer. However, they perform similar cancellation jobs in all cases. General conditions governing the cancellation function of 'aval’ and 'ela’ are proposed in terms of such a unified treatment of the various uses of these particles. The meaning of an utterance is viewed as made up of hierarchically ordered 'layers of meaning’ (some of which contain partially ordered sublayers), from an inner 'core’ of propositional content to an outer 'shell’ of conversational implicature, via such layers as modality, illocutionary force, felicity conditions, etc.
This volume comprises the second part of selected papers of the International Pragmatics Conference in Antwerp, August 1987.
In this paper, the pragmatic function of connectives is discussed. Whereas semantic connectives express relations between denoted facts, pragmatic connectives express relations between speech acts. This paper takes a closer look at the pragmatic connectives and, but, or, so, and if.
Review article discussing Schiffrin's (1987) "Discourse Markers"
The article is a tentative description of Italian phatic connectives (items such as come sai ‘as you know’, diciamo ‘let's say’, va be' ‘well’, etc.). In an interactional perspective, the addressee's involvement in the conversation (which transpires by means of phatic connectives) will be discussed so as to focus on the interactive features of the conversation and on the common construction of the message. A pairing of addressee and speaker's phatic connectives, which seem to match each other, answering a given interactional function, will be proposed. To conclude, some general remarks on the sociolinguistic variables related to the use of phatic connectives in Northern Italy will be dealt with briefly.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1982. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-120). Microfiche. s
The notion that a text is coherent in virtue of the `relations' whichholdbetween the elements of that text has become fairly common currency, both in the study of discourse coherence and in the field of text generation. The set of relations proposed in Rhetorical Structure Theory (Mann and Thompson [16] has had particular influence in both of these fields. But the widespread adoption of `relational' terminology belies a certain amount of confusion about the relational constructs themselves: no two theorists use exactly the same set of relations# and often there seems no motivation for introducing a new relation beyond considerations of descriptive adequacy or engineering expedience.
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