Discourse Markers in Arabic and English Newspaper Articles: The Case of the Arabic Lakin and its English equivalent But

Abstract

Discourse markers, as words or phrases, play a significant role in promoting coherent segments of discourse. This paper investigates the use of discourse markers (DMs) in newspaper articles. By applying Fraser's framework, this study aims at investigating the functions and positions of DM but (English) and its equivalent lakin (Arabic) in newspaper articles written by native and nonnative speakers of English and Saudi and Egyptian speakers of Arabic. It also highlights the similarities and differences in the functions and positions of DMs but and lakin. This quantitative study adopts a corpus-based approach. The data consist of articles collected from 12 newspapers categorized as: Arabic language newspapers published in Saudi Arabia (Alriyadh, Al Jazirah, Al-Hayat) and Egypt (Al-Ahram, Al-Gomhuria, Eltahrir) and English language newspapers published in Saudi Arabia (Arab News, Saudi Gazette, Asharq Al-Awsat) and the USA (Washington Post, The New York Times, USA TODAY). Findings demonstrate, first, that DM but is used frequently as a confirmation or addition marker by both native and non-native speakers. However, second, lakin, functions as the primary correction DM in standard Arabic. Moreover, third, the native Arabic speakers mostly share the same functions of using lakin despite different dialects they have. This study also reveals that lakin can be found only in the medial position, whereas, but is found in the initial and medial position. It concludes that DMs but and lakin evidence that functions of DMs proposed by Fraser are universal and they could be generalized.

The Meaning and Functions of qSdk and yʕny as Discourse Markers in Saudi Arabic

“…b. Kwlna Amn app you mean. The procedural meaning of correction that the DM "qSdk" conveys is also related to other DMs mentioned by other researchers such as "Lakin" in standard Arabic (Alsager et al, 2020) and "bass" in Syrian Arabic (Hussein, 2009). The last procedural meaning of the DM "qSdk" is shown in (9).…”

“…You mean makeup? The sentence in (8) reflects the pragmatic function of correction that the DM "qṣdk" conveys. In this sentence, speaker b does not ask for clarification as in the previous example.…”

Discourse markers in TV interviews: A corpus-based comparative study of Chinese and the western media

“…Studies examine the function of the DM and tend to rely on loosely extracted examples from multiple sources, such as examples retrieved from the spoken learner corpora ( Heng, 2005 ), showing that the DM and can serve as an addition, a comparison, and a delaying device. Research on the DM but focuses on how it functions across a range of genres and literary forms, such as oral narratives ( Norrick, 2001 ), a diachronic corpus of Northern English conversations ( Hancil, 2018 ), and on comparisons between the DM but and its counterparts in other languages ( Alsager et al, 2020 ; Khammee, 2022 ; Shirzadi et al, 2022 ).…”

Grammaticalization of discourse markers: views from Jordanian Arabic

“…With regard to DMs, the majority of the previous studies on DMs are concerned with their pragmatic functions and uses in daily conversations, such as the DM ʕa:di ‘normal’ ( Kanakri and Al-Harahsheh 2013 ), wallahi ‘by Allah’ ( Al-Khawaldeh 2018 ), lakin ‘but’ ( Alsager et al., 2020 ) and ya:hummala:li ( Hamdan and Abu Rumman, 2020 ). 4 To the best of the researcher's knowledge, there are few studies that tackle the development of some DMs from lexical or functional sources, such as the grammaticalization of the wh-word ʃuː into a discourse linker Jarrah et al.…”