Key considerations

Noticing and understanding discourse markers helps learners to understand the logical structure of what they read and listen to, the order of events and the attitude of the speaker or writer to what they are describing. Once they are aware of what these are and how they function, learners can begin to use them to show how the points they make relate to each other and to their overall argument or narrative.

Learners need to be clear, however, that they can’t always rely on discourse markers to signal logical relations, order of events and attitudes as we often rely on our readers or listeners to infer these from the context or from some shared or general knowledge.

Our teaching materials and our learners’ reasons for learning English (in particular whether spoken or written English is a priority and whether or not they need to use English in formal contexts) usually determines which discourse markers we teach. As with any item of vocabulary, how much we help them to appreciate subtleties of meaning (e.g. the difference between however and nonetheless) and usage (e.g. where we can put them in a sentence) depends on their level of English and what other discourse markers they already know.

In teaching discourse markers we usually have to take into account:

• • how frequently they are used (e.g. we use however more than nonetheless).

• • how they are used in relation to particular kinds of text and context (e.g. we use expressions like I’m afraid primarily in speaking or in writing when we are personally involved with the topic and with our audience; we use a word like hence primarily in formal writing and speech).

• • whether they can introduce or separate substantial ‘blocks’ of text (e.g. however, furthermore) or whether they tend to be used with shorter stretches (e.g. as well).

• • whether they generally precede clauses (e.g. so, thus), occur within clauses (e.g. also, therefore) or whether they usually come at the end of clauses (e.g. too).

What are discourse markers?

What do they do?

We use discourse markers:

• • to signpost logical relationships and sequence – to point out how bits of what we say and write relate to other bits (‘textual discourse markers’).