말차례 시작에 나타난 담화표지어 연구: 영국 영어 대면 대화 코퍼스를 중심으로

Abstract

This study investigates the types, frequency, and functional distribution of discourse markers (DMs) at turn-beginnings in a corpus of British English face-to-face conversations. The results indicate that the ten most frequently occurred DMs are yeah, mm, well, oh, but, and, no, so, yes, and like in order of frequency. The DMs mm, oh, yeah, yes, and well at turn-beginnings constitute over 50 percent of their total frequency, and they mainly serve the interpersonal function, such as indicating back-channel signals, expressing a response to the preceding discourse, and indicating evaluation. The analysis of functional distribution shows that the most frequent turn-initial function out of three domains, i.e., ideational, textual, and interpersonal domains, is that of back-channel signals in the interpersonal domain. The result can be interpreted as indicating that the interpersonal function is the primary function that DMs serve at turn-beginnings, supporting the fact that this position represents the point of interaction management.