Variation in the use of discourse markers by Chinese teaching assistants in the US

Abstract

The use of discourse markers (DMs) is common in everyday native speech. If an L2 speaker wants to sound more like a native speaker, one way is to adopt the “conventional expressions” (e.g. DMs) used by native speakers in the local community. Recently a number of studies have examined DM use by native speakers of a variety of languages; however, relatively few studies have explored the use of DMs by L2 speakers and even fewer have examined L2 speakers in the study-abroad context. This study investigates the use of English DMs by six male and female Chinese L1 graduate students in a study-abroad context. The DMs examined are yeah, oh, you know, like, well, I mean, ok, right, and actually, for a total of 1422 tokens. Combining insights from variationist sociolinguistics and SLA, this study uses quantitative methods to investigate the use of DMs in two settings, TA-led discussions and sociolinguistic interviews, and examines the variable production of L2 speakers. In addition, this study also employs qualitative analysis to examine the relationship between L2 speakers’ multifaceted social identities, language attitude, and participation in the local community with their individual repertoires and frequency of DM use.