Discourse Markers in an Online Community of Buhînën People

Abstract

One of the language communication challenges is how it works as speakers use it. Some words may not change their semantic meaning, but when it is meant to say on speaker’s intention, it impacts the context; these particles are discourse markers. It has been used in everyday interaction, face-to-face communication, writing, and an online environment. This compels the researcher to investigate further the occurrences of the discourse markers in Buhînën People in an online community. This study centralized how discourse markers maintain their status of cohesion and interpersonal in computer-mediated communication. This qualitative study was based on Gustilo and Palacio’s (2016) study on discourse particles. Discourse markers were categorized into two: textual and relational categories. The corpus of 2,000 Facebook posts, primarily texts, was the data collected from the most numbered population on the Facebook online group of Buhînëns. Then, the survey was conducted to gather data about the pragmatic relation of relational discourse markers. The data revealed that the most hits were the discourse marker ‘na’ for the textual category, whereas ‘po’ for the relational category. It also revealed that more textual discourse markers were found. The functions proved the idea of metalingual function (Maschler & Schiffrin, 2015), as it has many functions in both categories, including the micro-function of relational discourse markers. Furthermore, the study also answered the importance of the discourse markers in pragmatics and computer-mediated communication, through which they served both their primary roles as structural and interpersonal.