The applications of ‘Oh’ and ‘Well’ as Discourse Markers in Conversation

Discourse markers could be particles such as ‘oh’, ‘well’, ‘then’, ‘you know’, and the connectives ‘so’, ’because’, and, ‘but’, and ‘or’. In this research, the writers focused on discourse marker as particles: ‘oh’, and ‘well’ since ‘then’ and ‘’you know’ could not be found in students’ conversation. The research, entitled The Use of ‘Oh and ‘Well’ as Discourse Markers in the Conversation conducted in qualitative and quantitative method by using descriptive/interpretative approach. The aims of the research are: the first, it is to analyze the use of ‘oh’ and ‘well’ in the conversation of students. The second, it is to analyze the error use of ‘oh’, and ‘well’ as discourse markers in students’ conversation. After analyzing the data, ‘well’ was mostly used as face-threat mitigators, while the use of ‘well’ as a qualifier indicating some problems on the preceding utterance was not found. Meanwhile, the use of ‘oh’ mostly used was as pure surprise. The other uses of ‘oh’ as assertion, emphasis, and reaction were not found. From this research it can be found that the use of discourse markers ‘oh’ was used more than ‘well’ since ‘oh’ is also often used in conversation than ‘well.’ Another finding is, students made error in using ‘oh’ more than ‘well’ though students are more familiar with ‘oh’.

Keywords:

‘oh’ , ‘well’ , assertion , emphasis