discourse marker
noun [ C ] language specialized uk/ˈdɪs.kɔːs ˌmɑː.kər/ us/ˈdɪs.kɔːrs ˌmɑːr.kɚ/
话语标记
a word or phrase that is used for organizing discourse (= spoken or written communication ), for example well, so, or in fact
Many speakers use "you know" as a discourse marker. 很多人说话的时候用 "你知道 ",这就是一个话语标记。
- More examples
- His style is full of chatty discourse markers (for a start, touch wood, in any event, possibly).
- Utterances such as venga ("come"), mira ("look") and oye ("listen") are typically used as discourse markers in Spanish.
- Discourse markers such as "well", "you know", and "like" are not usually explicitly taught to language learners.
- In her corpus-based research on the phrase "I think" in American English, she finds that it often serves strictly as a discourse marker, with no real semantic content.