An Investigation of the Discourse Markers in Casual Conversation: EFL Dormitory Context

This study was set up with the intent of investigating the linguistics features of MA and BA students who lived in the dormitory, during casual conversation. Likewise, it was intended to identify the DMs that mostly occurred intheir speaking. To this end more than 6 hour’s casual conversation among 50 (30 BA and 20 MA) students, in 5rooms in BA and 6 rooms in MA dormitory, was recorded and transcribed based on Sacks, Schegloff, &Jefferson (1974) transcription system. The data were analyzed quantetivly and qualitatively. The findings revealed more than 60 discourse markers that mostly occurred in the casual conversation among the participants. Besides, specific features of male speakers lived in dormitory discussed and a list of more frequentwords/phrases was presented. Based on the findings of the current study it could be implied that teachers and curriculum designers specific attention towards teaching discourse markers, explicitly or implicitly, seems necessary

Keywords:

discourse marker , casual conversation , dormitory , EFL