The Discourse Marker well in EFL Textbooks

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the discourse marker (DM) well in five English as a foreign language (EFL) textbooks published by famous overseas publishing companies, and to examine whether the usage of the DM well found in these books reflects the various functions it fulfills in the discourse of native speakers as analyzed by linguists. Six functions of well were selected based on common usage, without duplication of any of the functions of well proposed in previous work. These six functions are turn management marker, face threat mitigation marker, insufficiency marker, frame markers, repair marker, and collaborative marker. As a result, the frequencies of turn management markers, face threat mitigation markers, and insufficiency markers were found to be higher, whereas the frequencies of repair markers, and collaborative markers were significantly lower. In addition to using textbooks, additional classroom activities could also allow English teachers to teach discourse markers to learners. For example, after first being shown a movie clip that contains the use of DMs of native speakers, students will be able to discuss how the particular DMs function in conversations.