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This book examines discourse marker use in Turkish and English casual conversations. The research conducted to investigate the functions of discourse markers is descriptive in nature and aims at finding whether discourse marker use is among the language universals or particulars with reference to the two languages in question. Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter and it also gives background information on the Turkish language. Chapter 2 deals with the survey of literature on discourse markers: their definition, functions and different approaches to their analysis. Chapter 3 describes the method of data collection, while Chapter 4 presents the framework of analysis. In Chapter 5 and 6 the analyses of the markers are presented in Turkish and English respectively. Chapter 7 presents the quantitative analysis and significant results and interpretation of similarities and differences in Turkish and English with respect to discourse marker use. In chapter 8 the results and the interpretation of the qualitative and quantitative analyses are presented. Finally, Chapter 9 draws the arguments together into a general conclusion to this study.

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Nurdan Gurbuz is Assistant Professor and the Director of METU-SUNY TEFL Dual Diploma Programme at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, TURKEY. Her research interests include spoken discourse, English Language Teaching Methodology, teaching oral communication skills and lingua franca discourse.

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