1 TWO ACCOUNTS OF DISCOURSE MARKERS IN ENGLISH

This paper is a scrutiny of the semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers in English. It discusses two accounts in the analysis of discourse markers, namely the Coherence account and the Relevance account. The paper investigates the similarities and differences between the two accounts and concludes by arguing that the Relevance account is an ideal account and more appropriate for analysing discourse markers than the Coherence one. The paper is organised as follows: section 1 is a general introduction. Section 2 discusses the coherence-based account of discourse markers (Schiffrin 1987; Giora1997, 1998 and Fraser 1988, 1990). This account argues that discourse markers play a crucial role in the interpretation of discourse by signalling coherence relations between discourse units. Section 3 investigates the relevance-based account of DMs (Blakemore1987, 1992, 2002; Regina Blass1990; Corrine Iten 1998 and Wilson and Sperber1993. These researchers argue that discourse markers are indicators and procedures that constrain the inferential part of the utterance interpretation by guiding the hearer/reader to recognise the intended cognitive effect with the least processing effort. Section 4 gives an evaluation of the two accounts and favours the relevance account which considers discourse as a cognitive rather than linguistic entity. Section 5 is a conclusio