Univerzita Pardubice Fakulta filozofická

Univerzita Pardubice

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English

Publikace detail

Use of discourse management devices in learner dialogues

Autoři: Ježková Šárka

Rok: 2015

Druh publikace: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Strana od-do: nestránkováno

Tituly:

Jazyk	Název	Abstrakt	Klíčová slova
eng	Use of discourse management devices in learner dialogues	The paper presented an analysis focused on the use of non-clausal units occurring at the beginning of an utterance and functioning as a turn-taking signal, i.e. mainly discourse markers and response forms. The study explores the whole variety of such utterance launchers, typically found in native speakers’ discourse, with the aim to find out if Czech students acquire these discourse management devices serving to build up natural flow of conversation. It describes the distribution of both one-word inserts, such as interjections, particles and adverbs, and of multiple-word fixed phrases, then identifies their particular functions of discourse markers, response forms and backchannels. The figures show that the inventory of devices is rather limited and that these structures are not an inherent part of students’ spoken performance. Except the discourse marker you know, multi-word inserts are almost non-existent and three quarters of occurrences are represented by well and so. Among response forms, prevailing structures are yes / yeah and OK / okay, functioning both as a direct response and as a backchannel, expressing variety of relations. There is also a noticeable tendency of using two or more inserts together, quite often together with filled or unfilled pauses, which may be explained as a strategy to use these structures not only as discourse markers but also as hesitators. The apparent effect of students’ native language has not been proven, except a considerable frequency of so functioning as a discourse marker, which could be considered a case of negative transfer. On the basis of the findings it can be concluded that the courses in the TEFL study programme should be modified with the aim to teach students specific features of spoken discourse and to improve their communicative competence in speaking English.	spoken language; learner corpus; turn-taking devices; discourse markers; interaction