The use of micro-level discourse markers in British and American feature-length films: Implications for teaching in EFL contexts

Abstract

Discourse markers (DMs) are significant for fluent speech. Furthermore, they are important elements of language for conversation organization, reciprocal relation among interlocutors, and productive speaking and comprehension. Although, they have very important functions for pragmatic development, they seem to be neglected in language teaching either because of the belief that they are difficult to teach, or as a result of the focus on grammatical competence in language teaching. This study examined the use and functions of micro-level. DMs in British and American feature-length films and it provided implications for using feature-lengths films as a source of authentic language input for explicit or implicit teaching of DMs. The scripts of four films (two British and two American) were analyzed using the AntConc Concordance program. The results show  that there is not a significant difference between British and American films in terms of the frequency of DMs well, like, and you know.  On the other hand, it is found that oh is used significantly more frequently in British films than American films. The functional analysis of the DMs showed that, both British and American feature-length films represent the use of English DMs in native discourse. Therefore, the study concludes that the films could be used for teaching and learning of DMs in foreign language teaching. The results are discussed in terms of pedagogical implications.