TRANSLATION OF THE DISCOURSE MARKER ACTUALLY: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS
1 INTRODUCTION
Lexical items such as actually, well, in fact, anyway, oh well, I mean carry little or no lexical meaning and are therefore referred to as words that are “simply salt-and-peppered through a text to give it flavor” (Lutzky, 2006:3). Their use guarantees effective and productive conversation among the speakers. Such words are defined by many scholars as discourse particles or discourse markers. Discourse markers are widely used in spoken discourse, usually in daily informal conversation. However, this research concentrates on the usage and function of these words in written discourse, as they appear in fiction. Discourse markers as a special phenomenon have been studied from various perspectives. As previous studies (see, for example, Aijmer 1986,Shiffrin 1987, Fraser 1999, Klerk 2006) have shown, discourse markers not only enhance the speech but also perform multiple functions and ensure cohesion and coherence on the part of the speaker. The item actually, for instance, as a discourse marker has been studied by many scholars from a pragmatic standpoint alongside with such markers as really, well, and in fact.
1.1 Aim and scope
This research particularly concentrates on the discourse marker actually and its close synonyms well, in fact, the fact that, as a matter of fact. The word actually is widely used in spoken and written registers, and its meaning in different situations varies too. In this thesis its functions of a discourse marker will be distinguished in order to carry out the analysis on its use, including such aspects as in what cases actually can be replaced by the synonyms mentioned above.
The aim of the thesis is to identify the use of the discourse maker actually in the corpus of data according to the functions of discourse markers as suggested by Vivian De Klerk (2006). Due to its many senses and functions in spoken/ written texts it becomes a problem to translate this item into Lithuanian without changing the effect of the
Lexical items such as actually, well, in fact, anyway, oh well, I mean carry little or no lexical meaning and are therefore referred to as words that are “simply salt-and-peppered through a text to give it flavor” (Lutzky, 2006:3). Their use guarantees effective and productive conversation among the speakers. Such words are defined by many scholars as discourse particles or discourse markers. Discourse markers are widely used in spoken discourse, usually in daily informal conversation. However, this research concentrates on the usage and function of these words in written discourse, as they appear in fiction. Discourse markers as a special phenomenon have been studied from various perspectives. As previous studies (see, for example, Aijmer 1986,Shiffrin 1987, Fraser 1999, Klerk 2006) have shown, discourse markers not only enhance the speech but also perform multiple functions and ensure cohesion and coherence on the part of the speaker. The item actually, for instance, as a discourse marker has been studied by many scholars from a pragmatic standpoint alongside with such markers as really, well, and in fact.
1.1 Aim and scope
This research particularly concentrates on the discourse marker actually and its close synonyms well, in fact, the fact that, as a matter of fact. The word actually is widely used in spoken and written registers, and its meaning in different situations varies too. In this thesis its functions of a discourse marker will be distinguished in order to carry out the analysis on its use, including such aspects as in what cases actually can be replaced by the synonyms mentioned above.
The aim of the thesis is to identify the use of the discourse maker actually in the corpus of data according to the functions of discourse markers as suggested by Vivian De Klerk (2006). Due to its many senses and functions in spoken/ written texts it becomes a problem to translate this item into Lithuanian without changing the effect of the
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