Pragmatic Discourse Markers: A Comparison between Natives and Non-natives and Textbook Evaluation

Pragmatic competence is one essential component of communicative competence; however, it has been quite neglected until recent years. Among all, the knowledge and ability to use discourse markers (DMs) cannot be overemphasized because they often facilitate cross-cultural communications. Due to the culture-bound nature, DMs (e.g., “well”, “y’know”) are often used quite differently across cultures. To help the EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners master discourse markers, discrepancies between natives and non-natives must be revealed first. However, few studies have investigated how non-native learners differed from native speakers, not to speak of the deviations under the influence of power and distance, reported to be decisive factors in the uses of DMs. Therefore, the present study aims to examine how natives and non-natives use DMs when the social roles changed. In addition, the uses of DMs from Far East English Readers were examined to study some possible influence of textbooks on non-native learners. The subjects included 6 English as Foreign Language (EFL) college freshmen and 6 English as native language speakers (ENSs). Role play was used to gather the data from the native and non-native speakers. The results revealed that “well”, “y’know” and “so” are the most commonly used DMs by both the ENSs and the EFL learners. Power and distance relationship among the interlocutors were revealed as not so much a factor in determining these markers’ occurrences than the nature of requests, the functions of these markers in discourse or the responses from the addressees. A lack of DMs found from the textbooks could be a source of students’ inadequate DM ability. Some pedagogical activities are suggested.