Talk:Discourse marker

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 7 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pt9913a. Peer reviewers: Otkri, Lauratoner01.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2018 and 3 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shannibal.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Technobabble
Removed to talk, this paragraph is so technical, it makes no sense to the average person:
 * Discourse markers are usually polyfunctional elements. Discourse markers can be understood in two ways. Firstly, as elements which serve to the union of utterances (in this sense they are equivalent to the term connective). Secondly, as elements which serve to a variety of conversational purposes.

Inclusionist (talk) 07:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Huge amount of material deleted
The anon User:142.1.147.229 deleted a huge amount of material, which was added by User:Zpunja :

Inclusionist (talk) 08:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This had all quite rightly been deleted, as it was irrelevant to the article and related to the poster's own doctoral research. I have once again deleted this useless section. Robertoalencar (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

My English teacher wrote Discourse Marker next to the word "Another". I am very confused :S —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.242.80.213 (talk) 16:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

examples?
please give some examples of use in conversation —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.69.107 (talk) 20:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Discourse markers do have meaning
The statement that discourse markers do not change the meaning of a sentence or have a somewhat empty meaning is based on a very narrow definition of 'meaning' and, if it shouldn't be removed completely at least needs to be qualified. The sentences "Oh, he's a real dick", "Actually, he's a real dick", "I mean, he's a real dick" all have distinct meanings in the sense that they relate the speaker's knowledge or assumptions of the recipient's attitude toward the statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.241.9.37 (talk) 12:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

In terms of the truth or falsity of an assertion, nothing changes when different discourse markers are used. They only indicate a speaker's feeling towards a statement, and don't alter the meaning of the assertion. For example: 'well, he's terrible at football', 'Umm, he's terrible at football'. In 'Actually, he's a real dick', 'actually' is not used in the sense of him physically being a dick, but rather the speaker feeling strongly about his assertion. Likewise 'I mean' and 'oh' don't alter the substance of the statement that 'he is a real dick'. They are clearly not the same as 'I am saying that he is literally a penis'--whatever that means. Although I prefer Swan's definition which I posted, I don't think it's controversial to say that discourse markers are empty of meaning; or at least quantifiable meaning. 189.165.69.185 (talk) 05:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review: Wkim456

I don't think there is enough information here. True its very technical, but its also so brief. I think more information should be added about discoure markers usage and origins. Especially the origins, I would like to know when this term was first invented and by who and why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wkim456 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Camaraderie Discourse Marker?
I specifically have in mind "dude" as a discourse marker. I name it a camaraderie discourse marker (which falls within interpersonal usage?) because of this paper: http://www.pitt.edu/~kiesling/dude/dude.pdf. But I'm not married to term "camaraderie marker," so I welcome any ideas or insights for this kind of discourse marker. The paper asserts: "Indeed, the data presented here confirm that dude is an address term that is used mostly by young men to address other young men; however, its use has expanded so that it is now used as a general address term for a group (same or mixed gender), and by and to women. Dude is developing into a discourse marker that need not identify an addressee, but more generally encodes the speaker’s stance to his or her current addressee(s). The term is used mainly in situations in which a speaker takes a stance of solidarity or camaraderie, but crucially in a nonchalant, not-too-enthusiastic manner. Dude indexes a stance of effortlessness (or laziness, depending on the perspective of the hearer), largely because of its origins in the 'surfer' and 'druggie' subcultures in which such stances are valued. The reason young men use this term is precisely that dude indexes this stance of cool solidarity."

My questions succinctly: Is there an existing term that defines the "camaraderie discourse marker" described above. If yes, please provide the term and definition; if no, what term and definition should we use? Are there other examples (English) of this marker? I expect so. Gnarzikans (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In my experience, "Dude" often functions as an elliptical discourse marker that signals turn-taking, a topic this article neglects so far. This article has been identified as "Start Class," so there's a chance someone will expand it accordingly. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 12:28, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Origin of the term
I don't know who coined the term discourse marker, but it certainly wasn't Deborah Schiffrin. A cursory web search shows Chaudron & Richards used the term in 1985, and according to Google books, the term was coined in 1956. The now-deleted |title=Obituary:%20Deborah%20Schiffrin|last=Plonsky|first=Luke|date=2017|website=Linguist link to the Deborah Schiffrin obituary is clearly erroneous. So too is the initial publication date of her book, which was in 1987, not 1988, which was a second publishing. The most that can be accurately said about Schiffrin in the lede is that she popularized the term with her 1987 book. It's not particularly noteworthy that Schiffrin had earlier published her use of the term in 1982, which wasn't as acclaimed as her 1987 publication. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 00:17, 16 May 2022 (UTC)