December 2009
Volume 4 Issue 2


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Title
Discourse Markers: The Case of and in the Speech of Turkish Speakers of English 

Authors
Kagan Buyukkarci
University of Çukurova, Turkey

Bilal Genc
 Kafkas University, Turkey 

Biodata 
Kagan BUYUKKARCI received his MA in English Language Teaching from Selcuk University and currently is a Research Assistant at the ELT Department, University of Çukurova, Turkey. 　 
Bilal GENC holds a doctorate in English Language Teaching from the University of Cukurova, Turkey, and currently is a staff member at the Department of English Literature, Kafkas University, Turkey.

 Abstract 
Discourse markers are the words and phrases that help us to develop and relate ideas to one another. In this study, the usages of and as both a discourser marker and a conjunction in the speech of Turkish speakers of English were examined. First, and tokens in spontaneous monologues were identified using text-only data. Then we examined textual features of and and attempted to find a set of features that could be used to distinguish between and’s Sentential function (conjunctive) and its Discourse function (initiating a new topic). Results of the analysis illustrated that in the Turkish speakers’ productions and has a role both as a discourse marker and as a conjunction.

Key Words: Discourse, Discourse Markers, Spontaneous Speech.