Use of Discourse Markers among Senior University Students

The study of discourse markers has attracted the attention researchers as a facet linguistics since 19th century. focus research been based on theoretical status in relation to how they are used and for what reasons, explored different contexts settings; however, few studies have conducted context Saudi Arabia. This study, therefore, attempted look at use by senior university students majoring English Arabia its functions. Fraser’s (2004) semantic perspective, classifying into four categories, was adopted, together with Hiilker’s (1991) features markers, consistent view that meaning is related their function clarifying intrinsic value an utterance. results revealed essays employed all categories. However, it evident participating struggled appropriate markers. issue should be examined greater depth reasons this difficulty assessed. One reason lies students’ low exposure class. It thus highly recommended teachers raise EFL awareness providing them more tasks exercises.