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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 14:6 (2023) ► pp.908–943

A socio-pragmatic analysis of the Turkish discourse markers of ‘şey’, ‘yani’, and ‘işte’ based on educational level of speakers

ORCID logo | National Defence University Turkish Air Force Academy

This paper analyzes the influence of the educational level of speakers on speakers’ preferences of the Turkish discourse markers (DMs) şey ‘uh’, yani ‘I mean’, and işte ‘you know’. 56 participants from age groups 33–50 and over 50 participated in the study. Speech data from each participant in two speech corpora (planned vs. spontaneous) were gathered via face-to-face interviews. Although various trends have been observed in two speech conditions in terms of the educational level of the speakers in the current data, the frequency rates of these markers were mostly higher in the speech of (especially male) participants with a lower educational level, compared to those of participants with a higher educational level. Educational-level related differences were also observed in further analyses of the functions of the three DMs under focus.

Keywords: Pragmatics, discourse markers, speech conditions, educational level, Turkish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Different perspectives in DM studies and variables influencing DM production
    • 2.2Studies of ‘şey’, ‘yani’, and ‘işte’
    • 2.3Other Turkish DM studies
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection and analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Frequencies
      • 4.1.1Frequency of ‘şey’
      • 4.1.2Frequency of ‘yani’
      • 4.1.3Frequency of ‘işte’
    • 4.2Functions of the DMs
      • 4.2.1Functions of ‘Şey’
        • (1)A marker referring to a general phenomenon or mutual knowledge
        • (2)Planning/thought-organizing marker
        • (3)Topic introducing-topic raising function
        • (4)A marker of self-repair following a false start or a hesitation (incomplete word)
        • (5) Filler (When used as a filler, ‘şey’ means ‘thing’ in most cases.)
      • 4.2.2Functions of ‘yani’
        • (1)A marker of expansion
        • (2)An emphatic marker/a highlighter/ a focus marker
        • (3)A boundary marker
        • (4)A marker of self-repair
        • (5)A point-raising marker
      • 4.2.3Functions of ‘işte’
        • (1)A marker of shared knowledge or a referral to assumed knowledge
        • (2)A boundary marker
        • (3)An emphatic marker
        • (4)A marker marking the speaker’s unwillingness to give a detailed answer
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Summary & conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
Published online: 6 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20011.alt
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