Discourse Markers

Examining the Usage of Discourse Markers in Ukrainian Students Speaking English at the University of Minnesota

Introduction

            The process of learning a language (whether it is a native or a foreign language) takes a lifetime to master. The path to mastering a language is filled discourse markers. My research includes two respondents (Lera and Pavlo) answering questions in an interview setting as well as observing natural conversations they have with each other and myself. Both respondents in this article learned Russian and Ukrainian as their first and second languages before learning English. Inspired by the work of Lakoff and Holmes, this work is meant to evaluate the manner in which men's and women's speech differ.  The purpose is to accurately evaluate their usage of discourse markers, such as um/uh.

Methodology/Data Collection

            The respondents that were chosen for this study share several similarities. Lera and Pavlo are citizens of Ukraine. Pavlo comes from L'viv, which is located in western Ukraine near the border with Poland. Lera comes from Crimea, which is the autonomous republic in southern Ukraine, via Kiev (the country's capitol city). Both respondents are 22-years-old, and in their first year of studying at the University of Minnesota. They speak Russian, Ukrainian and English fluently. Each respondent comes from a middle-class family in major cities, thus allowing them to each begin learning English in elementary school. Feeling a need to improve their English communication skills, they both attended tutoring sessions and discussion groups. The only variable is the respondents' sex—Lera is female and Pavlo is male. I selected to study this group of respondents due to my connection with Ukraine. I taught English in Ukraine for approximately two years between January 2008 and August 2010. The many positive experiences that I shared with Ukrainian people has motivated me to continue my interactions and partnership with them.

            My method of selection was non-random sampling from a University of Minnesota student group named USSR (Union of Students Speaking Russian). Lera and Pavlo were the only two Ukrainians that I met during a Small World Coffee Hour event, where every other week the USSR group (either in part or wholly) assemble. The implementation of non-random sampling was instituted because there was not a large enough group of Ukrainians to randomly select two respondents.

            The nature of my data collection was spoken data. I selected this type of data collection because I wanted to examine their usage of discourse markers in speech. I had contemplated also examining their writing styles, but deemed it of no significance because in their writing they are taught to purposefully avoid discourse markers. If one were to search for discourse markers in written data, it may be more difficult to collect data in a perused, edited text. Thus, spoken data provides a more informal, open medium to observe the usage of discourse markers. The majority of the spoken data that I have collected has come from a formal, face-to-face interview format. I implemented the interview format as a means of generating data in English. Without the prompting questions in English, respondent would gradually change what they were saying into Russian.

            The first respondent that I sat down with was Pavlo. We were at Ricardo's apartment with a small group having dinner together. Several members of our group needed to leave to buy additional products at the store. I was left in the living room of the apartment with both of my respondents. I told them both that I was writing a paper about the life of foreign exchange students at the University of Minnesota. It was a requirement for me to ask a few questions to hear their general impressions. Initially the idea was met with excitement. Then, Pavlo asked whether we could do this in Russian. At this point, I had to insist it be in English considering it was for an English class. When I took out my cell phone to record the conversation, the atmosphere in the room seemed to change and Pavlo began to look nervous. Throughout the interview, with myself and Lera in the room, he avoided much eye contact and frequently was glancing at the phone to see how much time had elapsed. Before the interview with Pavlo had concluded, and I could switch my attention to Lera's response to the questions, we were interrupted by the return of the other party members.

            When I was able to sit down with Lera, several days later, the setting was different. We were sitting in my living room discussing her university back in Kiev. It seemed to be a perfect time to discuss her impressions of her life and university in Minnesota. She was drinking tea and working on her computer as I asked her questions. Initially, while discussing Kiev, she was more relaxed. In a similar way with Pavlo, when I took out my cell phone to record her responses, she became more nervous in her responses. An interesting observation arose in the way which each respondent handled the nervousness of having their third language recorded. Pavlo's reaction to the nervousness he felt was to provide an answer to the questions as quickly as possible. Lera's style starkly contrasts with Pavlo's as Lera began to speak more slowly and carefully.

            As aforementioned the linguistic variable that I will be looking for is the usage of discourse markers, such as um/uh, which are pragmatic variables. Other discourse markers that were used by the respondents were: like, well, yeah, kind of, I don't know, actually, and anyways. Upon listening to the original interviews and examining the recorded data and transcription, it was remarkably noticeable how Pavlo used discourse markers (um, and uh) far more often than Lera. Whereas both respondents used the word like on an equal scale. Although um and uh are two different discourse markers, they appeared to be interchangeable in their pragmatic function. The reason I chose to research the usage of um/uh is because they seemed to be more noticeable in the initial data collecting process.

Statistical Analysis

Usage of um/uh in total word count

	Um/Uh	Word Count	Percentage
Lera	5	720	1 in 144
Pavlo	41	1119	1 in 27.29

Usage of um/uh in time segments:

	Um/Uh	Time	Percentage
Lera	5	8 minutes	Once every 96 seconds
Pavlo	41	7 minutes, 15 seconds	Once every 10.61 seconds

Pragmatic Functions:

There are five different features which I have identified in the usage of um/uh discourse markers:

1.     Focusing

Focusing is a technique which draws attention to a certain aspect of what the respondent is trying to communicate.

	Um/Uh	Total ~ Focusing	Frequency
Lera	5	3	60.00%
Pavlo	41	29	70.73%

Examples:

♠       “I'm studying because I, um, transferred from the University in Ukraine – National University of Kiev.”  ~  Lera

♠       “In Russia and Ukraine, it’s not – they don't give you enough, um, knowledge.”  ~ Lera

♠       “So, when I finished high school, um, I had-I have really cool friend, and she-so she started to study, um, English as her major, like interpretation or translation.”  ~  Pavlo

2.     Translating

            Allowing brief time to evaluate word choice as the respondent attempts to adhere to local vernacular and regional word choices.

	Um/Uh	Total ~ Translating	Frequency
Lera	5	1	20.00%
Pavlo	41	8	19.51%

Examples:

♠       “It’s, um, it’s difficult to receive any knowledge of language from the teacher.”  ~    Lera

♠       “She was not eligible for applying for this scholarship because she, uh, she was like a, uh, she was a senior.”  ~ Pavlo

♠       “Um, when I – so as you know – in Ukraine we learn English starting from the very first form and then to the, um, uh, the eleventh grade—until, uh, we finish the high school.”  ~  Pavlo

3.     Error Correction

            As the respondent is speaking their sentence, there is a break, filled with um/uh, that allows for the respondent to quickly evaluate their speech to make sure it follows basic Standard American English grammatical forms.

	Um/Uh	Total ~ Error Correction	Frequency
Lera	5	0	0.00%
Pavlo	41	2	4.88%

Examples:

♠       “My, um, mine scores were 96.”  ~ Pavlo

♠       “Yeah, so, I do – I do, uh, I really do like it.”  ~ Pavlo

4.     Conjunctions

            This feature is shown to be a conjunction between two different clauses.

	Um/Uh	Total ~ Focusing	Frequency
Lera	5	1	20.00%
Pavlo	41	0	0.00%

Example:

♠       “So, it wasn't too difficult to be away from my parents, um, it can be difficult to be away from my culture, I guess.”  ~  Lera

5.     Split Infinitives

The insertion of um/uh in between the two parts of an infinitive.

	Um/Uh	Total ~ Focusing	Frequency
Lera	5	0	0.00%
Pavlo	41	2	4.88%

Examples:

♠       “Where they ask you questions … things that you wrote in your essays and after this you got to do is to, um, pass TOEFL test.”  ~  Pavlo

♠       “It really inspired me to, um, start to improve my English.”  ~  Pavlo

Interpretation

            Looking through the data it becomes striking how different the results of this research are. It comes as no surprise, however, that the most common pragmatic function is “focusing.” When analyzing this pragmatic function, each respondent uses focusing to account for upwards of 60-70% of their total usage. Thus, percentages show a similarity which is not reflected in the actual word count ratio. Lera's total um/uh word count was only 5; whereas Pavlo's usage was upwards of 800% higher, totaling 41 counts. When looking at the amount of times Lera used um/uh as focusing (60%) in comparison to the amount of times Pavlo used um/uh as a focusing function (70%), there is statistically little variation. However, Pavlo's um/uh is far more noticeable than Lera's. I defer that Pavlo's use of um/uh as a focusing function is used because his rate of speech is much quicker than Lera's mindful responses. In order to keep listeners focused on the hasty ideas that he is trying to express, Pavlo utilizes um/uh as focusing expressions. 

            Along similar lines, when Pavlo is speaking, he uses um/uh as a pragmatic function to translate more times than Lera. Lera does it once which contributes to 20% of her um/uh usage, where Pavlo uses this function 8 times for 19.51% of his total. Although the percentages would indicate Lera uses this function more frequently, transcripts actually shows Pavlo more frequently displays occurrences of using um/uh in combination with 2-3 second pauses as a means to translate his thought.

            Another feature of interest in my research was that I had originally thought that um/uh would be used as a means to correct errors in the grammatical structure of sentences. I found out through transcribing the data that this hypothesis was erroneous. In fact, Lera did not utilize this function at all, and Pavlo only used this function twice. It was surprising to find that what I thought that I heard in normal conversation seemed not to be there when I began to transcribe and analyze my data. The same occurrence appeared with my “Split Infinitives” pragmatic function. I expected to reveal more instances of split infinitive usages of um/uh. Instead, I found that Lera did not utilize this function at all, and, again, Pavlo only used it twice. Both the lack of findings for “Split Infinitives” and “Error Correction” were a surprise to me, because I had expected to see their occurrence on a more regular basis, considering each respondent may disregard different grammatical structures when answering my inquiries.

Problems with Research

            One difficulty that presented itself with my research was scheduling conflicts. Because of the busy atmosphere of the end of this Spring semester, it became a challenge to meet with my respondents for further conversations. Whenever I was able to see Lera, she was with several other native Russian speakers which made it difficult to keep the conversation freely flowing in English. Pavlo's internship, volunteering, and studying kept him incessantly preoccupied with other duties. I was only able to document one more recording with Pavlo, but we were again with other people. Perhaps he was more relaxed with friends as we walked around campus discussing architecture and the end of the school year, but one external factor that caused havoc for my research was the wind. Most of the hour and a half of time that I could record him in a relaxed atmosphere was rendered inadmissible because the quality of the recording was greatly compromised by the strong gusty winds into the recorder. Although, from hearing distinguishable clips, his use of um/uh discourse markers appeared not to change much.

            As for Lera, we have had several other discussions, but none of them were recorded. However, I observed a difference in her demeanor and speech. She was more relaxed and conversational when the audio recorder was absent. This relaxation caused a more steady and rapid verbal flow of her thoughts. Although data was not recorded, the increase of the like, um/uh, yeah and okay discourse markers was audibly noticeable. As for having Pavlo and Lera talk with each other, the idea's first attempt rendered nonproductive. While discussing the topic of the University of Minnesota and Lera's upcoming graduation, their language switched to Russian. It has proved difficult to persuade them to speak only in English.

            Another difficulty that I encountered with my research, apart from time and availability of my respondents, was eliminating one of my initial discourse markers—like. I spent time and energy researching the discourse marker, only to discover that the pragmatic functions were inaccurate and I was counting merely the amount of times they used like. The problem with all of this was more so my own misunderstandings of like as a discourse marker and like as another part of speech. In the end, it proved to be a more inconclusive aspect of my research because each of my respondents used the word like equally. It made the findings of um/uh in their speech look more remarkable.

Conclusion

            I found that the data which I collected and analyzed was quite contrary to my initial hypothesis. I expected to find that Lera's and Pavlo's frequent discourse markers would point to Lera adhering to Lakoff's findings, as well as the respondents would both use um/uh as a means of correcting their grammatical errors when their thoughts were spoken aloud. On the contrary, when discussing the usage of um/uh in the speech of Lera, her usage was far less than Pavlo's. That is not to say, however, that she uses fewer discourse markers than he does. My research only proves that, in the studies that I have conducted about the um/uh discourse markers used by Ukrainian students studying at the University of Minnesota, Pavlo displayed a stronger disposition towards using these discourse markers. My research also concludes that the focusing function was the most prominently used, which means that um/uh are not a means to determine that my respondents are unsure of their answers. In fact, this study shows that they are rather aware of the intent of their discourse markers and the functions that each carry.

            In further analysis of this topic, I would like to expand my focus of discourse markers to include more than just um/uh, perhaps I would identify each discourse marker used by each respondent. Also, if I continue to look at the differences in the usage of discourse markers between each sex, it would be beneficial to expand the number of respondents in order to collect a wider range of data. The small respondents pool caused my data to be too specified, and unable to draw conclusions for more generalized research. Also, if to continue researching the use of English spoken by Ukrainians, I would like to consider code-switching. Much of the data I collected included different variations of switching between English and Russian.

v Appendix A:

Lera’s Transcript

Speakers: Lera and Interviewer (Brent)

Setting: Sitting on sofas in my living room talking about the United States.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

Interviewer: Tell me, how do you like the United States?

Lera: I do like the United States, even though there are some things that I didn't like about the United States. But I think now it is especially difficult for me to talk about because I'm really homesick. And, because people are homesick, they tend to like less a foreign country, foreign places or whatever. But there are a lot of things that I like about the United States. Like things are clean and well organized and safe and maybe there are more opportunities here than there are in my country.

Interviewer: Okay, so why are you studying in the United States?

Lera: I'm studying because I, um, transferred from the University in Ukraine – National University of Kiev. And, um, I think at some point at my university I didn't know what I was going to do. So, I decided to get this experience abroad and maybe broaden my knowledge, broaden my perspectives. I came to the United States. And …

Interviewer: Okay, so, how long have you been studying English?

Lera: I studied English, well, I started studying English when I was in elementary school; which most of people in Ukraine start studying English, well, I lived in Russia when I started studying English in my school, in my elementary school. And usually in schools, like in Russia and Ukraine, it’s not – they don't give you enough, um, knowledge. They expect you to know a lot in language. So, it’s kind of – on one hand it’s difficult to keep up with all – all exercises and all tasks – but, at the same time, its, um, it’s difficult to receive any knowledge of language from the teacher. So, I started studying, I had a private teacher for sometimes – she was, she was a student. She wasn't like special sort of teacher or something. She was just a student who learned English really well. And, yeah, but by the time I wa – I graduated from high school, I hated English. I just hated it. So then when I entered the University, I din – I, I started studying Spanish. But by, when when-when-when it was third year in the university, I realized that I really need English. I mean, any normal person that wants to achieve something in contemporary world needs to know more than one language, so… So, I went to a private school to study English. And that’s been, like, three years. So, I would say it’s been three years of intensive English studying. And I had a lot – I had native English speakers to talk to, which helped me a lot. I think that what really help to learn language.

Interviewer: Yeah. So, what's the most difficult part of studying here?

Lera: Well, being away from home is kind of difficult. But I, I don't know, I moved out of my parent's house when I started university in Kiev. So, it wasn't too difficult to be away from my parents, um, but it can be difficult to be away from my culture, I guess. But actually, I thought it would be much more difficult to study here. Like, I-I was worried if my language is good enough to read texts in English, to write papers in English, to understand teachers, everything. Then I realized that it’s not that difficult, and teachers are helpful, and language they use is not that difficult. I think that in-in-in, like, Ukrainian universities teachers use more, like, sophisticated, scientific language, like they always – it’s like they always want to confuse you. Here its more, like, clear, simple and there wasn't too difficult to understand. But, anyways… I mean its still – I read slower than I do in Russian and Ukrainian. But, its fine.

Interviewer: Yeah. Have you been able to meet a lot of people from Ukraine, or Russia, or parts of Eastern Europe?

Lera: Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of people from Eastern Europe here, from what I noticed. And I became a–  good friends, friends with some people from, from Eastern Europe – from Russia and Ukraine Belarus. And, and I think it’s—it’s kind of interesting, I think sometimes—sometimes I think that we wouldn't be friends if we met in Ukraine with these people, but here, just because we are—I guess we're all homesick and we kinda just become friends. So, I don't know. And, yeah, sometimes I hear—I hear Russian just on the streets of Minneapolis, other places here, and it’s kind of interesting. It’s always, like, surprising me but, at the same time, I don't know, I know there are a lot of immigrants.                                           

** (END 8:03) **

v Appendix B:

Pavlo’s Transcript

Speakers: Pavlo, Lera, and Interviewer (Brent)

Setting: Sitting on sofas in Ricardo's apartment.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

Interviewer: “Yeah, it can be anonymous. Completely anonymous. Alright?”

Pavlo: “Okey.”

Interviewer: “I don't know how well this sound works, so we'll just set it there and see how it works. Anyway, so, tell us: how do you like the United States?”

Pavlo: “Um, I do like the Uni – United States of Amarica, because, uh, I think that thee Ukrainians have, uh, reellee like lot o' thing to learn from Amaricans and from Amaric – from the experience of Amaricans. Yeah, so, I do – I do, uh, I really do like it. However, there are a quite a few things that I don' really like about Amaricans, but …  Oh, I mean, uh, I don' like about Amarican lifestyle, not about Amaricans. Uh, mmm, okey, but in general, I'm really happy to be here, uh, uh, really happy that I got this chance to come here, this scholarship, and to experience this kin'a Amarican life, and take some more positive experiences with me. Okey, next question.

Interviewer: A'right, well that's pretty cool.

(Laughter)

Lera: Like TOEFL

(Laughter)

Interviewer: Don' worry about tha' …

Lera: Yeah, forty seconds of, like, ahhhhh!

(Laughter)

Interviewer: Okay, so, how did you end up getting this scholarship to bring you here?

Pavlo: So, um, mine friend – One day, I guess it was somewhere in September…um…year ago, my friend, uh, sent me a link wia Vkontakte and she sow this kin'a advertisement of this scholarship, but she was not elligible for applying for this scholarship because she, uh, she was like a, uh, she was a senior.

Interviewer: Okay

Pavlo: This scholarship 's only for ju… , uh, freshmens, um, Suphmores? Suphmores and Juniyers. And, in order to apply you got to create on de website des, uh, of IREKS. IREKS is a kin'a, its a, administAtor of des scholarship.

Interviewer: Kay.

Pavlo: Um, you gotta create an account, you gotta pos' your scores that you get your school carrently – at your carrent school. You got te post, eh, lotza, your, um, working spericence, your volunteering experience, your, um, mmm, culture experience, li… alloatza zat stuff. And, especially de, I sink de emphasis is on da volunteering experience because Amaricans reellee – are reelly into volunteering.

Interviewer: Yeah… 

Pavlo: Okay, besides that you have to write this three esseys, essays, each of them for one tousand words, and, wa, de firs one is a why would yo like to study in the USA. The second one is your idea of a leadership and who's a good leader and why and it could be any one – like a member of your family or the president of some, some country, any country or etcetra. Okey. And the third one is the letter to your roommate, your future roommate. Of course, your roommate don't gonna get it. If you, if you get de scholarship. But, its jus' zat, yeah, where yer writing about yeorself, yeor life, yeor family, yeor town. Okey. So, den, eef you are lucky, de call you and de say that you, you are semI-finalist. If you're not lucky dey just sent you a letter, send you a letter and say, “Oh, thank you very much for applying. But, unfortunately, I mean, we liked your esseys very much and you, but … (inaudible) …” Okay, and if you become a semifinalist, semi-finalist you go to Kiev for intERview with the five Amaricans – four Amaricans, one Ukrainian alumNI of this same scholarship – and were they ask you questions  which are pretty much about your, um, essays and things that you wrote in your essays and after this you got to do is to, um, pass TOEFL test.

Interviewer: Oh...

Pavlo: And there is no minimum. I mean, you just have to pass the TOEFL test, and then-then they'll, I mean, if y-they like you—if they like everything else about you, but your TOEFL test is pretty low, they—I think they're take you. Um, I mean, but not a really low, but, like, 60 out of 120 or something. Okay. My, um, mine scores were 96.

Interviewer: 96?

Pavlo: Yeah. I mean, I was, like, really? I-I thought, like, 70. Like, 70-80 – something like this. I was, “Wha? What?” At, like, the first fifteen minutes, I thought that somethings wrong. I mean, maybe it’s not the right score. Maybe it’s not the same scale. I don't know. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, that's how I got here. Okay.

Interviewer: That's great. Where did you learn your English?

Pavlo: Um, when I – so as you know – in Ukraine we learn English starting from the very first form and then to the, um, uh, the eleventh grade—until, uh, we finish the high school. But when I finished the high school, I couldn't barely speak the word; I could barely say the word. Yeah, because we were…

Lera: Same here. (laughter)

Pavlo: (Laughter). 'Cause we were not motivated at all; there was no motivation. Yeah, we kinda, we liked it, but yeah. So, and the teachers sometimes, I had some—teachers change, teachers change all the time. Some of them were really good. But some of them, they-they could barely speak themselves. I mean, they could, they know the—they knew the grammar and stuff, but they had no practice. They never seen an Englishman or American in there life. Like, yeah, okay. So, when I finished high school, um, I had-I have really cool friend, and she-so she started to study, um, English as her major, like interpretation or translation. I don't know how you call it. Okay, and, um, she was coming to my house and to, because I have-I had VHS. She needed to watch those movies for her (inaudible), and I was watching with her. I cou-I could barely understand a thing, a word. And really inspired me, it really inspired me to, um, start to improve my English, and there was also a, in L'viv, there was also American, um, American Methodist Church. Tha-tha was- that was there some organization. They had, uh, every Thursday they had, uh, (inaudible), where they had—it was kinda Bible studies. It was really fun. It was really for students, and it was really fun. People were nice there. And I was, um, coming where with my friends sometimes and there were so many Americans. And they were, like, talking English when they were talking Bible or something else, they were talking English, and at the very beginning I could also barely understand something. That was another motivation for me to learn. So, what did I do? I applied for some private school. Just some, get something like what you were teaching, and it was pretty expensive. But, um, I applied for it, and I was taking private courses for one year. Then I read three books, or four, or five, I don't know, but they are pretty thick. And they were, like, adapted literature. Simplified, they were simplified. And, um, I was reading those books. I was watching quite a few movies. At the very beginning, as usual, I could barely understand something, but then it was getting better and better and better. And I was also, um, frequently going to that, um, student center and there were lots of Americans. There I had, um, my first experience in speaking English.

** (END 7:15) **