Use of Discourse Markers in English Conversations: A Case Study of EFL Students at Faculty of Social Sciences, Kuwait University

Discourse markers play an important role in the coherence of discourse and facilitate communication. It has been also argued that EFL students need not only the grammatical competence but also discourse knowledge to be able to effectively maintain a conversation. Therefore, the present study investigates the use and functions of discourse markers as used by EFL students at Faculty of Social Sciences in Kuwait. It also aims to investigate the differences between high and low proficient learners in using such discourse markers. The study adopts the Fung and Carter’s (2007) model in which the discourse markers are classified into four categories, namely, interpersonal, structural, inferential and cognitive. It also employs a mixed-method design in which both qualitative and quantitative approaches are adopted for data collection and analysis. The population of the study includes the intermediate level students studying English as a foreign language at Faculty of Social Sciences, Kuwait University. The sample of the study includes 32 high and low proficient students. The students were selected from the whole population based on their scores in the presentation component which is considered a speaking test. Then, only the conversations performed by the sample were analyzed in terms of the use of discourse markers. An informal interview was also conducted with five students after the quantitative data had been obtained. The findings revealed that the most frequently used discourse markers are the interpersonal discourse markers while the least frequent ones are the referential discourse markers. It is also found that the structural and cognitive discourse markers registered the second and the third, respectively. It is also found that the high proficient learners outperformed the low proficient learners in terms of the use of discourse markers. This suggests that there could be an association between the use of discourse markers and proficiency in speaking. Furthermore, it is shown that discourse markers are used to perform different functions, and this contributes to the coherent and pragmatic flow of conversations. However, the use of discourse markers by the participants was very limited. Therefore, the study recommends that discourse markers should be incorporated in the curricula of speaking and should be also considered by teachers during the process of teaching the speaking skill to EFL university students.