Discourse Markers in Oral Interaction by Third-year ULIS Mainstream English Majors

Discourse Markers in Oral Interaction by Third-year ULIS Mainstream English Majors Lê Thị Thu Huyền Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Ngôn ngữ học Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: PGS. TS. Lê Hùng Tiến Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: Never before has the term “pragmatic competence” been mentioned so frequently in studies on second language learning and foreign language teaching. One aspect of pragmatic competence is the use of discourse markers (DMs) in oral communication. Despite being small words such as well, you know, I mean, like, DMs are frequently utilized by native speakers and regarded as useful devices to facilitate communication. This paper investigates the use of DMs by third-year ULIS English majors in their interaction with the natives. Findings reveal that the majority of Vietnamese participants have not paid adequate attention to using DMs in spoken discourse. This leads to an urge in uncovering justifications for the students‟ low frequency of DMs from both the teachers‟ and students‟ perspectives. The paper also proposes suggestions on the teaching and learning of DMs. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Giao tiếp; Kỹ năng nói; Diễn ngôn Content I. INTRODUCTION I.1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM AND RATIONALE In an increasingly globalized era, teaching and learning English language, especially in terms of communicative oral skill has become a matter of concern to many linguists and educators. Littlewood (1981) regards one‟s ability to “use real and appropriate language to communicate and interact with others” as “the primary goal of most foreign language learning”. Communicative ability, however, must address not only grammar and vocabulary but also the knowledge beyond linguistic forms. One of the aspects regarding knowledge beyond linguistic forms is the use of discourse markers (hereafter DMs) in oral communication, which can help to make the speaker sound like a native. The lack of linguistic devices such as DMs may account for the fact that in social interactions in English, some ESL/EFL learners may unintentionally come across as “abrupt or brusque” (Lee, n.d.). In other words, the omission of DMs might make the speakers appear impolite or the speech might appear somehow deficient. Consider two versions of a conversation: Version 1: A: Could I borrow your car? Version 2: A: Could I borrow your car? 2 B1: No, I think I need it tonight. B2: Well, I think I need it tonight. In responding to the request, thanks to the presence of the DM well, Speakers B2 sounds more polite and less abrupt. The message therefore reaches Speaker A in a less extreme way. Understandably, abruptness may happen most commonly in direct interactions in which no time is given for the interlocutors to think (Östman, 1982 and Croucher, 2004: 41). The use of DMs such as well, you know, right, okay, I mean, etc. can help fill the pauses while lending the speaker some time to think. It is generally agreed that DMs contribute to the pragmatic meaning of utterances, thereby playing an important role in the pragmatic competence of the speaker. Defined as “an aspect of communicative competence [which] refers to the ability to communicate appropriately in particular contexts of use” (Jaworski, 1998: 249, cited in Müller, 2005: 18), pragmatic competence is acknowledged as part of what a student should learn about a language. DMs are much related to this kind of competence since they “constitute an intrinsic part of one‟s communicative competence” (Wei, 1996: 2). In Vietnamese language teaching and learning context, many learners of English, even English-major ones, find it difficult to communicate with foreigners as they lack the strategies to employ in conversations. All the aforementioned grounds have genuinely inspired the researcher to conduct a study entitled “Discourse markers in spoken interaction with native speakers: Third-year ULIS mainstream English majors‟ use and perceptions – Teachers‟ perspectives”. It is hoped that the research would contribute to the teaching and learning of DMs in classroom context, thereby enhancing the students‟ performance in learning foreign languages. I.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY First and foremost, the current interlanguage pragmatic research is conducted with the aims to identify the most frequently-used DMs produced by the students in their interaction with native speakers and then to some extent, to identify the functions of those markers. Based on the findings, the students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards the use of DMs are scrutinized, paving the way for the pedagogical implications on the teaching of DMs in classroom. Finally, some suggested exercises and activities for practicing DMs in English are proposed for those who want to make their conversations authentic and native-like. It is also hoped that the paper can raise the awareness of utilizing effective DMs in communication. In short, the study has been carried out to address the four research questions as follows: 1. What are the most common DMs used by third-year ULIS mainstream English majors in their spoken interaction with native speakers? 2. What specific functions do DMs perform in their spoken discourse? 3. What are the students‟ perceptions towards the use of DMs in speaking? 4. What are the teachers‟ perspectives towards the teaching of DMs to the students in classroom setting? I.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY There are a great variety of DMs which are classified in a number of ways by various researchers. However, the present study would like to focus on four DMs including well, you know, I mean, and like since they are among the items that are mostly frequently used and universally identified in speech as DMs (Lee & Hsieh, 2004: 179-180). The researcher aims at 3 investigating the use of those markers by Vietnamese learners of English to see whether those speakers can create native-like speeches. Notably, DMs are researched in conversations between Vietnamese EFL learners and native speakers of English. It is the researcher‟s endeavor to explore the issue in the speech of third-year ULIS mainstream students majoring in English. Despite not being investigated, the NSs are present in those interactions to help obtain as much information from the students as possible, with the intention of enhancing the latter‟s participation in the talks. The students‟ nonverbal communications are also beyond the scope of the study. I.4. CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY Theoretically, this study will cast light on a research area which not many Vietnamese researchers have ever addressed – the use of DMs by EFL/ ESL learners in interactions. Practically, as one of the initial studies in the area in the context of Vietnam, the current research could be useful for students, teachers, educational managers as well as researchers who are interested in the topic. Specifically, since the study investigates ULIS students‟ deployment of DMs in their interactions with foreigners, its findings will help these students as well as other English- major students improve their performance in oral communication. Meanwhile, teachers, after going through this research, will be more aware of their students‟ communicative performance, and thus will be able to help them gradually develop their pragmatic competence. As for educational administrators, the paper would provide them with a close and comprehensive view into the current situation, which may then reveal some pedagogical suggestions. Finally, researchers who share the same interest will find helpful information from this research to conduct further studies into this relatively new and so far ill-explored issue in the EFL context of Vietnam. II. DEVELOPMENT II.1. LITERATURE REVIEW II.1.1. Terminology of discourse markers (DMs) During the last few decades, numerous studies have dealt with DMs under a number of names including “discourse signaling devices” (Polanyi and Scha, 1983, cited in Yang, 2011), “discourse particles” (Schourup, 1985), “pragmatic particles” (Östman, 1995), “discourse markers” (Schiffrin, 1987; Stenström, 1994; Jucker & Ziv, 1998; Carter and McCarthy, 2006), inter alia. In this paper, the researcher adopts the term “discourse markers” since it is deemed as a broad covering term (Lewis, 2006; Jucker and Ziv, 1998) and “more popular and theoretically neutral” (Huang, 2011). Despite their different labels due to different theories and approaches, DMs are quite numerous and very easy to be spot out in spoken discourse. Typical DMs are linguistic items or expressions which belong to distinct word classes “as varied as conjunctions (e.g. and, but, or), interjections (oh), adverbs (now, then), and lexicalized phrases (y’know, I mean)” (Schiffrin, Tannen, and Hamilton 2001: 57). DMs help to make interactions coherent by bringing together the different aspects of discourse in a meaningful way. II.1.2. Characteristics of DMs Although there is no clear consensus about the definition of DMs and the question as to which words and phrases should be treated as DMs, the following characteristics are generally agreed upon by most researchers: Characteristics of DMs Explanation 4 Connectivity DMs connect the messages in ongoing interactions Optionality DMs are optional, both syntactically and semantically. Flexibility of position DMs may appear at the initial, medial or final position of an utterance. Multigrammaticality DMs come from different grammatical classes and they cannot be grouped under any single grammatical category. Prosodical independence A DM “has to have a range of prosodic contours, e.g. tonic stress and followed by a pause, phonological reduction”. Schiffrin (1987: 328) Among those listed characteristics, it should be noted that a combination of above- mentioned attributes needs to be taken into consideration to identify an item as a DM. II.1.3. Selection of DMs in the present study For this research, four DMs to be investigated include well, you know, I mean, and like. These four items were selected as they appear frequently in native corpora. These DMs are among the most salient features of spontaneous talk and they are reported to have the highest frequency of occurrences in native discourses (Trillo, 2002; Fox Tree and Schrock, 1999, cited in Lee and Hsieh, 2004: 180; Stenström, 1994). II.1.4. Main functions of four selected DMs While you know, I mean and well have a number of individual functions which are analyzed as working at the textual and at the interactional level, like only functions at the textual level (Müller, 2005: 242; Huang, 2011). Textual functions organize the content of what is said or mark (parts of) utterances as specific types of utterances, while interactional functions address the hearer directly or organize the sequence of turns between the participants. A summary of the selected DMs together with their main functions is found in Appendix 1. II.2. THE STUDY METHOD II.2.1. Participants II.2.1.1. Third-year ULIS mainstream English majors The main subjects of the study include third-year mainstream students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) – ULIS – VNU, coming from 23 classes formed in the academic year 2009 – 2010. According to the course outline of Division III, by the end of their third year at university, the students‟ English proficiency is expected to be at an Upper-intermediate level, which is equivalent to level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). At this expected level, the use of DMs is projected to be seen in the students‟ spoken discourse (Perez and Macia, 2002, cited in Eslami and Eslami-Rasekh, 2007: 27). The number of third-year ULIS mainstream English majors in the 2011-2012 academic year in total is about 534, among whom 54 random students, were chosen as respondents for this paper. Among this group of 54 learners, there were 50 females and 4 males. Due to the unequal distribution of the group in terms of gender, this factor was not taken into consideration in the study. The learners‟ ages ranged from 21 to 22, and most of them have been learning English for at least 10 years. 5 Although the number of selected students accounted for only around 10.1% of the target population, they were meticulously selected based on two sampling principles to ensure the representativeness and validity of the results obtained. First, stratified random sampling was adopted to ensure that each specific group of students in three different majors are equally chosen. Second, the principle of systematic random sampling was to give “a good spread across the population” (De Vaus, 2002). In all 23 classes, the researcher decided to choose the student‟s ordinal number of 2 as the first in line and an interval of 5 between student numbers. In other words, the chosen student numbers according to their class list included the 2 nd , 7 th , 12 th , etc. To increase the participants‟ willingness and eagerness in the participation, they were told that they would have chance to talk to a native speaker and they would be sent some resources to improve their speaking performance later via email. Such small yet positive encouragements somehow boosted the number of students participating, which can be seen in the following table. Majors Classes Population Number of participants English language teacher education 09E2 –09E14 353 36 Double majors – 721 program 09E15 – 9E22 152 15 Translation and interpretation 09E23 –09E24 29 3 TOTAL 534 54 In order to collect data from this main group, the researcher needed help from two native speakers of English whose role was to interact and elicit as much talk from the student group as possible. Particularly, two natives in this study are American; one male and one female who are at the age of 21 and 22 respectively. Each participant was to interact directly with one native speaker on the topic “Free time and part-time jobs”. During the interaction, the native speakers are expected to make questions (see Appendix 2) to obtain as much information from the students as possible, with the intention of enhancing the latter‟s participation. The interaction involves speech acts like describing, explaining, clarifying, showing agreement and disagreement. It is from these speech acts that a natural use of DMs is predicted (Huang, 2011: 69). II.2.1.2. Teachers of English Speaking Skill Thirteen teachers of Speaking participating in the study are those who are directly teaching English speaking skill to third-year ULIS mainstream students at the Faculty. It is therefore worth noting that those teachers clearly understand the state of the issue, particularly their students‟ performance in speaking activities and thus can propose some recommendations for the students to better their speeches. The researcher collected data from this group of participants through questionnaires and interviews, the descriptions of which are going to be elaborated in the upcoming section. II.2.2. Data collection instruments and procedures Both the quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized in this study since different kinds of information about an issue are most comprehensively and economically gathered via this combination. Accordingly, it employed three instruments to collect data, including the 6 NNSs – NSs direct interaction corpus, questionnaires, and interviews. The phases in the data collection procedures also follow the order of the instruments presented here. II.2.2.1. The student corpus The student corpus is based on a 325-minute audio-recording of 54 extended conversations. This instrument is to find answers to the first and second research questions. In order to have 54 conversations for the corpus, 54 third-year ULIS mainstream English majors interacted in English with either of the two native speakers. Each of the conversations lasted from five to seven minutes. After the data (i.e. 54 speeches) were gathered, a good amount of time was spent on dealing with the data collected from the student corpus to identify the most frequently-used DMs and their functions. To support the analysis process, transcription conventions are used when examples are cited in the study. II.2.2.2. Questionnaires To dig deep into the issue on the part of the students and the teachers, questionnaire was taken as one of the data collection instruments to respond to research questions 3 and 4. There were two sets of questionnaires. One was designed for all third-year ULIS mainstream students who took part in the interaction with native speakers of English (see Appendix 4A). Another set was carried out among the teachers of Speaking Skill in Division III - FELTE (see Appendix 4B). II.2.2.3. Interviews There was an interview schedule for the teachers (see Appendix 4C). Three semi- structured interviews were conducted with three teachers of Speaking in Division III, FELTE. Each lasted for an average of fifteen minutes. With the approval of the participants, all of the talks were recorded for later careful listening. II.3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION II.3.1. The most common DMs used by third-year ULIS mainstream English majors in interaction with NSs of English The investigated DMs (well, you know, I mean, and like) were found in the students‟ discourse; yet, each DM was recorded with different frequency level. The most common DM is well with 10 times of occurrences – the highest recorded. The other three items you know, I mean and like were found to appear 4, 3 and 2 times respectively in the student group‟s spoken production. Particularly special was the case in which one student excessively used well in his speech. Accordingly, with 20 times of occurrences of the four DMs in the whole recording of 54 students, it can be concluded that DMs were not so commonly and favorably used by third-year ULIS mainstream English majors throughout their speaking turns. The fact that DMs were not much incorporated in the students‟ oral discourse coincides with a number of studies among ESL/ EFL learners done by previous scholars including Fung (2003) and Moreno (2001). Specifically, in her research on the use of DMs by non-native learners of English in Hong Kong, Fung (2003) concludes that her participants (aged 17-19) “seldom incorporated DMs” in their speech. Another study that shared the status of DM use among EFL/ ESL learners is that by Moreno (2001). In an attempt to explore the utilization of DMs by Spanish students of English in their interaction with native speakers, Moreno‟s (2001) analysis showed that well and other DMs such as you know, I mean, right, okay, really, etc. are “hardly used” in the students‟ discourse (Moreno, 2001: 139). II.3.2. Specific discourse functions of DMs in spoken discourse 7  Well In the 325-minute student corpus, the DM well was reported to show 10 times of occurrences. The marker well in the corpus tends to occur at the beginning of a turn. Interestingly, this pattern matches Huang‟s (2001) study in which a large proportion of the instances of well are found in the turn-initial position in the dialogic genres. Well as a DM functions at both a textual and interactional level, like what has been concluded in Müller‟s (2005) work. At the textual level, one well acts as a delay device used when the speaker has difficulties expressing him/herself and is searching for the right phrase (Excerpt 10, see Appendix 5). At the interactional level, two wells function as a face-threat mitigator when the speaker responds to an argumentative question (Excerpts 2 & 7). Particularly special was one case in which the excessive use of well by a particular student raised the question of appropriateness. Well appeared 7 times in this student‟s speech, which is quoted in Excerpts 4 and 5. In these excerpts, Student 20a seemed to overuse the DM well. Well in this student‟s first four turns, together with very short replies may make the hearer interpret that this speaker does not want to participate in the talk. Besides, the fourth well in his speech was unnatural in the way that it did not match any functions previously found. All in all, such overuse and misuse of DMs may create a misleading impression on the hearers.  You know The present study shows a total of four you knows which fulfilled the criterion as a DM. In terms of positions, 3 out of 4 of you knows in the student data occur in turn medial, 1 in turn initial position and no records of you know in turn final. Sharing the same pattern, results in Huang‟s (2011) study shows that the most common position of you know is turn- medial in both the NNSs‟ and NSs‟ speech. The DM you know itself conveys many a function and some of its typical functions can be drawn in the student corpus. Whether being present in turn initial or medial position, you know fulfills a number of textual and interactional functions in the student corpus. At the textual level, it marks the speaker’s search for lexical expressions and/ or the content of what the speaker is going to say next (Excerpt 6). At the interactional level, you know is utilized to claim shared knowledge between the speaker and hearer (Excerpts 1 & 8). This agrees with Jucker and Smith‟s (1998) category of you know as an addressee-centered presentation marker.  I mean The DM I mean is used to modify the speaker‟s own ideas and intentions (Schiffrin, 1987: 267) and is often seen in turn-medial positions (Fuller, 2003: 30). I mean was used by the students in this research at both textual and interactional levels. Specifically, this marker was textually used to modify previously-spoken lexical items (Excerpts 3 & 9). Interactionally, as in Carter and McCarthy‟s (2006: 108) as well as in Huang‟s (2011:221) findings, I mean co-existing with pauses is found to act as a hesitation marker which lends the speaker some time to think before speaking (Excerpts 3 & 9). In other words, I mean is also used as a delaying device (Huang, 2011: 180). That is why the acquisition of the use of this DM is considered to be helpful for learners of English.  Like Similar to other DMs, the DM like may occur variably in the utterance and is syntactically optional. In the students‟ speech, like as a DM appears twice in turn medial position; more specifically, it is found to co-occur with hesitation markers and pauses to mark a search for appropriate expressions (Excerpt 6). Besides, like also serves the purpose of marking an approximate number or quantity (Excerpt 9). It can be seen that 8 the two recorded functions of the DM like are at the textual level only. Like the DMs well and you know, like can also be used when the speaker is thinking about what to say next. Most researchers including Schourup (1985), Müller (2005) and Huang (2011) agree upon those familiar functions of the DM like. A brief summary and overall comments on the students‟ speaking performance Overall, the study yields a total number of 19 times of occurrences of the four DMs well (10 times), you know (4 times), I mean (3 times), like (2 times) in the student corpus made up of 54 conversations. The small number of occurrences is also the result in most previous studies such as in Moreno‟s (2001) work. In her study, well and other DMs such as you know, I mean, right, okay, really, etc. are hardly used in the Spanish students of English‟s discourse (Moreno, 2011: 139). The absence of DMs in spoken discourse makes the students‟ speech scarcely fluent and natural (Moreno, 2001: 139). The utterance without DMs, as in Excerpt 11, is similar to a piece of writing. It is difficult to tell what has gone wrong in this extract; yet, it is clear that incorporating DMs would make the utterances more natural and native-like. This conclusion has been drawn by many researchers including Moreno (2001: 139), Liao (2008: 1313) and Huang (2011: 317). Huang (2011: 317-318) believes that an appropriate use of DMs in the spoken mode can facilitate the understanding of propositional meaning and interactional interpretations. In most cases, the students used a lot of ah, um, er and some long pauses when they could not think of what to say next, as illustrated in Extracts 12 and 13. In these excerpts, the two students used too much er and ah as delay devices. This result was also reported in Liao‟s (2008) study in which frequent occurrences of um could be found among six male and six female Chinese L1 graduate students in a study-abroad context. Meanwhile, the NSs tend to use well and other DMs frequently in their spoken data as a way of maintaining the floor while thinking of what to say next (Liao, 2008: 1321). Bearing in mind the communicative functions of the DMs, it can be said that NNSs, particularly third-year ULIS mainstream English majors don‟t seem to utilize DMs in their speaking turns. II.3.3. Justifications for the low frequency of DMs in the students’ spoken discourse Realizing the fact that DMs are not commonly used in the students‟ speech, the researcher felt a great need to further conduct in-depth questionnaires and interviews among teachers and students with a view to identifying the roots of the problem. Among 54 students who were expected to complete the questionnaires, 45 of them returned their answers to the researcher, which accounted for around 83.33%. Concerning the teachers, 13 out of 15 questionnaires were sent back to the researcher, leading to a response rate of 86.67%. Most of the students and teachers acknowledged the importance of DMs in oral communication. Particularly, 80% of the students and 92.31% of the teachers regard DMs as “important” and “quite important” elements in oral discourse. However, owing to some reasons, DMs were rarely used or were not used at all in the students‟ spoken discourse. There were both subjective and objective reasons accounting for the low occurrences of DMs in the students‟ speaking turns:  Students are not clear about the exact use of DMs.  Students are familiar with speaking in written form.  Students used to regard DMs as redundant words.  Students lack the chance to interact with natives. These aforementioned points raise the question as to whether DMs, their use, functions and prosodic features are explicitly taught to students in class. After closely studying the listening and speaking syllabi for ULIS English majors, the researcher could not 9 find any teaching points related to oral DMs presented. This fact is also reflected in the questionnaire and interview results as the teachers reported that DMs are rarely presented as a separate teaching point in both of their oral materials and listening ones. As being common items in the everyday spoken discourse of NSs, DMs are assumed to have special attention in language classrooms. However, DMs are “seldom part of the curriculum in the classroom” in spite of the important role they play in spoken discourse (Liao, 2008: 16). As de Klerk (2005: 275, cited in Liao, 2008: 16) observes, the reason might be owing to “their [DMs‟] lack of clear semantic denotation and syntactic role, which makes formal or explicit commentary on their use fairly difficult”. Due to the fact that DMs are not explicitly taught in class and NNSs can speak grammatically without the use of DMs, DMs are “usually invisible” for EFL/ ESL speakers who learn the language in a formal classroom setting (Liao, 2008: 16). II.4. SOME PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS II.4.1. Implications for learners of English Most papers on DMs have confirmed the same conclusion: NNSs display fewer DMs in their oral interaction than NSs do. In fact, the question as to whether NNSs should speak English like NSs is still under debate (Huang, 2011: 343). On the one hand, learners may not need to speak like NSs and they can keep their own cultural identity if they like, as long as their language does not impede comprehension or causes any misunderstandings. Meanwhile, it is undoubtedly beneficial for NNSs to raise their awareness of the use of DMs in certain contexts (Huang, 2011: 343). Learners should take NSs‟ usages as a target norm in order to improve their speaking performance and prevent misinterpretation in communication with NSs. The recommendation above also corresponds with the fact that 40 out of 45 students, or 88.89% of the respondents would want to acquire the use of DMs and employ them in spoken discourse. There are, in fact, several ways to acquire the use of DMs:  Practice speaking English with NSs  Watch movies in English to see how DMs are used  Study listening texts in which DMs are found to see how NSs use DMs  Listen to talk shows by NSs of English In any suggestions taken, close attention should be paid to the prosodic features of the DMs in oral interaction. As mentioned earlier, DMs are generally found to occur with pauses, phonological reductions and separate tone units which are distinguished from other linguistic items in the discourse units. II.4.2. Implications for teachers of English and syllabus designers In Vietnam, the fact that DMs as a communicative strategy are rarely found in speech and have yet been explicitly presented in speaking syllabi has highlighted a serious need for the teaching of DMs in classroom. In fact, it can be inferred from the description of NNS participants in most research that only at a pre-intermediate level upwards are DMs expected to be detected in learners‟ spoken discourse (e.g. Fung, 2003; Liao, 2008; Huang, 2011). It is generally agreed that only when the students can produce adequately clear utterances should they be taught the use of oral DMs. With regards to syllabus designers and materials developer, the teaching of DMs should be incorporated in the syllabus as well as the materials at appropriate levels. Spoken English, particularly oral DMs should receive special attention in the English language teaching and learning context of Vietnam. There is a need to increase the level of authenticity and interactiveness in spoken dialogues (Fung, 2011: 226). Classroom materials highly 10 displaying oral DMs include native speakers‟ corpora, movies, talk shows, all of which add to developing naturalness in both oral and listening skills among learners. III. CONCLUSION III.1. Major findings of the study Generally speaking, this research has revealed some major findings as follows: The paper firstly addressed the most frequent DMs employed by third-year ULIS students. The most common item was the DM well with 10 times of occurrences, including the case in which a male student used well 7 times. You know and I mean ranked second and third among the four with 4 and 3 occurrences respectively. Like as a DM appeared to be the least commonly-used marker with 2 times appearing in the student corpus. Notably, these four markers under investigation were used 19 times in total by 9 out of 54 third-year English majors. It can be concluded that most students in the study did not adequately display the use of DMs in their spoken discourse. The functions of the four DMs used by the Vietnamese participants were not as varied as those by native speakers found in the literature. DMs in the student data mostly occurred with pauses and fillers as a way of “buying” the time when thinking of what to say next. Added to that, the student corpus reveals that the Vietnamese NNS users of DMs are not necessarily fluent speakers, but their use of DMs makes the utterance sound more natural and native-like, whereas the speech of non-users of DMs sounds like formal written English or appears to be less coherent due to the use of a lot of ah, um, er alone. This results in clear-cut distinctions between the NSs‟ speech and NNSs‟. In an endeavor to uncover the reasons for such limited employment of DMs in the students‟ oral discourse, the study suggests that most of the students are not fully aware of the usefulness and functions of DMs in speaking. Particularly, 55.56% of the students are not clear about the use of DMs while 37.78% of them used to regard DMs as redundant and unnecessary words in speech. Perceiving the important role of DMs in oral communication, most teachers and students stress the necessity of acquiring a clear understanding of these small yet effective items. The paper also proposes two explicit DM teaching frameworks and several suggested activities for teaching DMs to students in classroom settings (see Appendix 7). III.2. Concluding remarks This paper is a serious attempt to study the use of DMs, a prominent feature of spoken English with the hope to contribute to the investigation of NNS/ learner language. The student corpus reveals that third-year ULIS mainstream students have not yet displayed a sensible use of DMs in oral communication. This fact raises several issues regarding the pragmatic competence of the students as well as their own use of communicative strategies. The major significance of pragmatic competence has constantly been highlighted by many researchers since it may ultimately decide whether a speaker has a successful communicative interaction. Successful communication in language learning must not only mean correct linguistic forms but also acknowledge language as a reflection of the socio-cultural norms of the L2 community (Vitale, 2009). As already mentioned, DMs are much related to the pragmatic competence, the acquisition of which is directly determined by such factors as: input, instruction, and exposure to the authentic language in real communications (Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnvei, 1998). The shortcomings in each of these factors partly account for the Vietnamese participants‟ infrequent display of oral DMs in their speech. The first possible reason is inadequate input which can be found in academic materials such as textbooks. The researcher‟s quick look-up of several school textbooks discloses that DMs are not presented much in conversations while the spoken language is quite formal. As a matter of fact, most students became acquainted to speaking in written [...]... time are surrounded by brackets [ ] E.g.: C: Can I have that [one]? D: [Uh huh] (Adapted from Müller, 2005: 281) Appendix 4A: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS Discourse markers in spoken interaction My name is Le Thi Thu Huyen from ULIS - VNU For my M.A thesis, I am conducting a research on Discourse markers in spoken interaction with native speakers: Third-year ULIS mainstream English majors use and attitudes... Turku conference, ed by B Wårvik et al Anglicana Turkuensia 14, 95-108 Redeker, G 1991 Linguistic markers of discourse structure Linguistics 29: 1139-1172 Rudder, M.E (1999) Eliciting Student-Talk English Teaching Forum, 37(2), 24-25 Schiffrin, D (1987) Discourse Markers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schiffrin, D (2001) Discourse markers: Language, meaning and context In Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D... structural DMs or interpersonal and cognitive DMs In addition, further research could dig deep into the issue by comparing and contrasting the pattern of DM use between the NNSs and NSs To reduce the hard work of finding comparable corpus of the natives, researchers in the field may collect the data for the corpus themselves by involving both NNSs and NSs participating in an interaction or completing the same... conference, ed by B Wårvik et al Anglicana Turkuensia 14, 95-108 45 Redeker, G 1991 Linguistic markers of discourse structure Linguistics 29: 11391172 46 Rudder, M.E (1999) Eliciting Student-Talk English Teaching Forum, 37(2), 24-25 47 Schiffrin, D (1987) Discourse Markers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 48 Schiffrin, D (2001) Discourse markers: Language, meaning and context In Schiffrin, D., Tannen,... DMs, is neglected Considering the three abovementioned factors, it is necessary to raise the students‟ awareness of the importance and functions of DMs in oral discourse Additionally, adaptation and changes to the curriculum design of school textbooks also need to be reformulated From the findings obtained, keeping in mind the expected level of third-year ULIS mainstream English majors, one might question... information  signaling a search for lexical words or content information  indicating clarifications and explanations  signaling exemplifications  marking approximations  marking a self-repair  elaborating, clarifying, modifying or expanding what has been said  searching for the appropriate expression  marking an approximate number or quantity  introducing an example  marking shared or general... the participants by narrowing down the possible interlocutors using stricter set of criteria such as level of proficiency, average mark of Speaking skill, etc By doing so, only competent learners of English are qualified to take part in the interactions, thereby raising greater chances of oral DMs to be found If possible, the whole recordings of the participants should be transcribed in order to measure... conducting a research on Discourse markers in spoken interaction with native speakers: Third-year ULIS mainstream English majors use and attitudes – Teachers‟ perspectives” I hope to receive your cooperation in completing this questionnaire as only this will guarantee the success of my research All the information you give will be treated with the STRICTEST confidence Thank you very much in advance... http://exchanges.state.gov/media/oelp/teaching-pragmatics/lee-well.pdf 35 Levinson, S C (1983) Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 36 Lewis, D M (2006) Discourse markers in English: a discourse- pragmatic view, in Fischer, K (ed.) Approaches to Discourse Particles, Elsevier, Amsterdam 37 Liao, S (2008) Variation in the use of discourse markers by Chinese teaching assistants in the US Journal of Pragmatics,... http://exchanges.state.gov/media/oelp/teaching-pragmatics/lee-well.pdf Levinson, S C (1983) Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Lewis, D M (2006) Discourse markers in English: a discourse- pragmatic view, in Fischer, K (ed.) Approaches to Discourse Particles, Elsevier, Amsterdam Liao, S (2008) Variation in the use of discourse markers by Chinese teaching assistants in the US Journal of Pragmatics, . Discourse Markers in Oral Interaction by Third-year ULIS Mainstream English Majors Lê Thị Thu Huyền Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận. II.2.1.1. Third-year ULIS mainstream English majors The main subjects of the study include third-year mainstream students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) – ULIS –. majoring in English. Despite not being investigated, the NSs are present in those interactions to help obtain as much information from the students as possible, with the intention of enhancing