French discourse markers in Shaba Swahili conversations

Abstract

One of the most striking characteristics of Shaba Swahili/French conversations is the near-exclusive use of French discourse markers. It is shown that from a structural point of view, the use of French markers presents no serious problems. Of course, the mere structural possibility of switching French markers cannot explain their near- categorical use. This phenomenon is best explained by taking into account the function of discourse markers as elements that create and strengthen discourse cohesion and coherence. In order to accomplish this task, discourse markers have to be as salient as possible. In bilingual discourse, this saliency may be maximized by using discourse markers from the language that is most salient. Since the language of morpho-syntax in Shaba Swahili/French discourse is Shaba Swahili, French markers stand out more clearly and have a higher contrastive value than their Shaba Swahili counterparts. Hence, French discourse markers are used instead of their Shaba Swahili equivalents. The importance of increasing contrastiveness as a way of maximizing saliency is evident from the fact that French markers are predominantly accompanied by pauses and/or prosodic cues, and from the fact that they predominantly occur in all-Shaba Swahili contexts, that is, they are followed and preceded by Shaba Swahili material in the majority of cases.

Butqui c'est la différence? Discourse markers in Louisiana French: The case ofbutvs.mais

“…Despite the lack of statistical significance, the slight increase in the use of English markers for more complex contrasts and metalinguistic connections seen in our data provides some support for Maschler's (1994Maschler's ( , 1997Maschler's ( , 2009) and de Rooij's (2000) suggestions that the role of a foreign discourse marker is to provide maximal contrast because the role of discourse markers is to provide cohesion and coherence. In de Rooij's corpus, however, the use of foreign discourse markers was nearly exclusive, and in Maschler's data, the use of foreign terms for discourse markers providing high-level connections was drastically higher than it was for conjunctions.…”

“…Though the markers show an overlapping semantic and functional distribution, but more often appears in the context of at least one pause. We also provide acoustic evidence and an analysis of the markers in different functions to conclude that the need for iconic contrast via language mixing (Maschler 1994(Maschler , 1997de Rooij 2000) is only one possible motivation for the use of foreign markers. We conclude that discourse markers may carry social meaning and be the site of identity construction as much as they are the site of text organization.…”

Bilingual Discourse Markers in Indigenous Languages

“…In a study of the use of French discourse markers in Shaba Swahili conversations, de Rooij (2000) finds that French markers are used to mark the text, and to create contrasts between languages, so that listeners are cued about how to understand the utterance. The author notes that Shaba Swahili markers are being displaced by French markers and can be considered borrowings.…”

Emphatic fingerspelling as code-mixing in American Sign Language

“…Code-mixing can serve to mark information as important, new, or to direct a change in topic (Muñoa Barredo 1997), meaning it can serve to mark focus, topic, or general emphasis (see section 2). Code-mixing is even argued to increase salience in and of itself (de Rooij 2000). As such, it is argued that, along with other familiar resources like syntax and prosody, the choice of language can project focus and mark the information in a discourse as prominent.…”