2.2. The discourse markers and their use in speech
Speaking is so much a part of daily life that we take it for granted. So natural and integral is speaking that we forget how we once struggled to achieve this ability until we encounter difficulties in learning a foreign language and striving at doing it all over. The average person produces tens of thousands of words a day, although some people, like businessmen or politicians, may produce even more than that. [Jiang Yanxin, 9]
Both in casual talk between friends and in business meetings, it is largely the use of discourse markers that signals a speaker’s conversational intentions. A discourse marker is to speaking what a car’s indicator lights are to driving: it lets other speakers know what your intentions are. [20]
As we are primarily exploring the use of discourse markers in business meetings, it is also important to be aware of the peculiarities of business English. Business English is a branch of English used for specific purposes. It is used in business occasions, and is a kind of standard English containing a variety of business activities and suiting the need of commerce. It is used under business purposes with business related lexical, syntactic and grammatical features different from those of General English. Using the accurate professional vocabulary is the most important feature of business English. The lexical features cover the specialization, formalization and standardization of vocabulary and polysemy, compound and borrowed words.
Language features of business English are special, formal, clear and courtesy . [14]
There are some kinds of expressions used in business meetings
Starting the meeting
Shall we make a start?
Let’s make a start.
It is time to get started.
Let’s get down to business.
Welcome, everyone.
The purpose of today’s meeting is to discuss…
Now that everyone is here, let’s get started…
Introducing the purpose
I have arranged this meeting to…
The purpose of this meeting is to…
The main objective of this meeting is to…
Moving On
If anybody does not have anything else to add, let’s move on to [item], which is the next item on the agenda.
Let’s take a look at item on the agenda…
Asking for opinions
Would you like to open the discussion … ?
Would you like to kick off ?
Would you like to get the ball rolling?
What does everyone think about… ?
I would like to get your feedback on…
What are your views on…?
Are there any other comments ?
Giving your opinion
I strongly believe that …
I am convinced that…
I have no doubt that…
From my point of view …
I tend to think that…
My initial reaction is…
Personally , I think…
My standpoint is that…
The way I see it …
It seems to me as if…
Agreement and disagreement
You are perfectly right.
I could not agree more.
That is true, I suppose.[Bill Mascul, 4, 15]
After reading some business meetings scripts I noticed that there are some discourse markers that are used more often than other ones. Here are two samples of formal and informal business meetings given below. After reading them there are also presented the discourse markers which are more often used. I wil also explain the role of the discourse markers in this business meetings.
| - Hello, Gary. How are you? |
| - Fine! And yourself? |
| - Can't complain. Did you have time to look at my proposal? |
| - No, not really. Can we go over it now? |
| - Sure. I've been trying to come up with some new production and advertising strategies. First of all, if we want to stay competitive, we need to modernize our factory. New equipment is long overdue. | - How much will that cost? | | - We have several options ranging from one hundred thousand dollars all the way up to half a million. | | - OK. We'll have to discuss these costs with finance. | | - We should also consider human resources. I've been talking to personnel as well as our staff at the factories. | | - And what's the picture? | | - We will probably have to hire one or two engineers to help us modernize the factory.[ | [16,19] |
As we could notice there are some discourse markers in this conversation, and they are:
and, which is used to put two ideas together in one sentence,
no, which is used to express refusal,
sure, shows confidence,
first of all - organizes a person’s views and opinions logically,
OK- indicates that everything is understood and agreed,
Good morning, Miss Jones. So you applied for a job in our team. Am I right?
Yes, I did. I sent my resume for a position of a restaurant manager.
That`s good. I`d like to know a bit more about you. Probably you could tell us about your education first.
Well, I left school at 17 and then for the next five years I studied at Kazan Federal University. I graduated the Department of economics with high honors and was qualified as a manager of enterprise. And after that I did a one-year computer course.
Well. Your education sounds great, Miss Jones. And have you got any experience? Have you worked before?
Certainly. First I worked as a manager at children’s clothes shop. I stayed there for four years and then I moved on to my present company. They offered me a job of a manager in a big cafe.
That`s very interesting. Why aren’t you happy with your present job, Miss Jones? Why are you going to leave them?
Well. The salary isn’t so bad, I must admit. But the work schedule isn’t convenient for me. And I often do a lot of overtime there. Besides you have an excellent reputation and I hope to have more opportunity and growth potential in your company.
I see. Do you mind business trips? And are you fluent in Italian or German?
Oh, foreign languages are my favorites. We did Italian and German at the University and I use them when I travel.
Very good. Can you tell me about your good points then?
Well… I start my work on time. I learn rather quickly. I am friendly and I am able to work under pressure in a busy company.
OK. That’s enough I think. Well, Miss Jones. Thank you very much. I am pleased to talk to you and we shall inform you about the result of our interview in a few days. Good-bye.
- Excuse me. Are you Mr. Hitchcock from Sydney?
- Yes?...
- I am Charles Atkinson from Telecom Systems. How do you do!
- How do you do! Thank you for coming to meet me. Have I kept you waiting?
- Not at all. Your plane has arrived according to the timetable. Did you have a good flight?
- Yes, thank you. The trip was quite long and I was a bit airsick but I’m OK now.
- Yes, thank you. The trip was quite long and I was a bit airsick but I’m OK now.
- Oh, you might be exhausted... Sorry, I completely forgot to introduce you Phillip Mason, our sales
manager.
- Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mason. So where shall we go now?
- My idea is to go to the office from here first and have lunch there. It will take us about 40 minutes to get to the place.
- It sounds good. Is Mr. Jackson waiting for us there?
- Certainly. We are going to discuss the details of our future partnership after lunch.
- Is the hotel far from your office?
- No. We reserved a single room in a good hotel just round the corner.
- Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
- No problem, Mr. Hitchcock. So, shall we go then? Our car is just outside the airport. Let me take one of your bags, please.
And the discourse markers in this official conversation are:
yes is used to add new idea to a sentence,
OK is used to show approval or agreement,
so expresses a condition,
certainly shows full confidence,
no is used to show refusal,
well shows connection with following opinion
I made my own small “survey” due to which I understood that from lots of discourse markers there were some discourse markers that we can meet in almost every conversation .Here we mentioned some discourse markers which were used in these conversations, but there are a few of them that are more widely used. These discourse markers are and, yes and so. The meanings and roles of which were mentioned above. They have their peculiarities concerning the type of the meeting they are used in. That is why I have given the explanations of these discourse markers right here, in these business meetings.
In sum, we come to a conclusion that each sphere needs new expressions and discourse markers from time to time, and via them a person can express as many ideas as possible and to use the most suitable and relevant ideas to your topic.
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