Discourse marker use across speech contexts: A comparison of native and non-native speaker performance

Abstract

This research analyzes the discourse marker (DM) use of native speakers and non-native speakers in two speech contexts, interviews and conversations. The findings indicate that native speakers use oh and well more in the conversation data, a difference which is also found in the non-native speaker data. The native speakers use like and y’know more frequently in the interview data, but the non-native speakers do not show a difference in the use of these markers across contexts. Instead, non-native speaker discourse is characterized by formulaic use of some DMs and an overall lower rate of DM occurrence.