Os marcadores discursivos do inglês falado no Brasil : um estudo de suas estratégias de uso e efeitos de sentido

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the use of discourse markers in spoken Brazilian English text, highlighting its functions and meaning effects in order to describe its use. The corpus consists of excerpts from interviews with teachers who speak English fluently. The research follows the empirical - inductive method and the theoretical framework is founded on the concepts of Conversation Analysis and Applied Linguistics, based on work on second language acquisition and/or foreign language. The results showed regularities in the use of discourse markers by Brazilians. Similar strategies were created considering the choice of markers, verbal planning and topic organization. Not lexicalized markers as "um" and "uh" and stretches, whose function is related to the local planning of speech, were recurrent. Markers composed of more than three words or lexicalized expressions were rarely used, appearing, instead, in their most frequent and characteristic pattern: one or two words with a maximum of three stressed syllables, i. e., simple discourse markers. From the description made, a relationship between the use of markers and the acquisition process has been established, since the increased use of these linguistic elements implies a better performance of the speaker. As the learner acquires language proficiency shall better understand the functioning of this language in different situations of verbal interaction, and hence increases linguistic competence in social work. Strictly speaking, the markers play an important role in establishing cohesive links between parts of the text, as well as in the maintenance and organization of the conversational flow. It operates simultaneously, as organizers of the interaction, connectors of the text and indicators of illocutionary force, besides providing a pragmatic meaning of utterances, which has an important hole in the process of pragmatic competence acquisition by the speaker.