Discourse Markers Pertinent Theoretical Concepts

429 its local context and discourse-pragmatically in the global textual context, the term discourse-pragmatic allows direct reference to these functions.

10.2.2 Discourse Markers

One of the areas of study within general Linguistics that may appear to have important implications for the study of items like is the analysis of discourse markers. Discourse Markers are …those natural language expressions whose primary function is to facilitate the process of interpreting the coherence relations between a particular unit of discourse and other surrounding units andor aspects of the communicative situation. As such the category of discourse markers includes members of a number of different word classes, e.g. adverbs, connectors, parenthetical expressions, as well as particles…. Risselada and Spooren 1998, 132 The primary function of a discourse marker is typically not so much to contribute semantically to the clause in which it occurs, as much as it is to indicate pragmatically significant information for the proper processing of the text. An example in biblical Hebrew is 5 , which is typically glossed as and now. Consider for example, Gen 27:3: Now then, please take your gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. K L5 L 5 L F 5 8 , Gen 27:3 The function of 5 here is not to establish the temporal reference for the action, but rather it indicates the urgency, the importance of that action, marking pragmatically salient information within reported speech. Perhaps one of the greatest liabilities of the term discourse marker is the tendency to read text-segmentational or structural significance into marker. For example, there are 26 occurrences of 5 in Genesis, but 430 a mere list of the occurrences of 5 does not provide a structural outline of Genesis. This may seem patently obvious, but the term marker—whether of the macrosyntactic or the discourse variety—tends to imply a segmentational function. It may be true that 5 sometimes occurs at a significant transition point in a narrative, but its function does not necessarily extend to the global textual level. The concern here is to consistently apply the context-sensitive model recommended in this study to every level of linguistic analysis. Even though there may seem to be some similarities between discourse markers and how functions, the preference here is to not use the term discourse marker with reference to . It is preferable to speak of having certain discourse-pragmatic functions, rather than giving it the label of discourse marker.

10.2.3 Discourse-Pragmatic Functions