Anadil ve yabancı dil konuşuru sözlü İngilizcesinde söylem belirleyicileri: Türk ve İngiliz üniversite öğrencilerinin informal görüşmelerde söylem belirleyicileri kullanımının derlem temelli bir karşılaştırması

Discourse markers serve a variety of functions in spoken discourse, and are valuable for being pragmatically competent in a language. However, non-native speakers are reported to differ from native speakers in their use of discourse markers. Moreover, the literature on the use of Turkish EFL learners has been limited, and available research is restricted to mostly planned and monologic speech. In this regard, this study aims to investigate the use of five most common discourse markers, namely so, like, you know, I mean and well, by Turkish and British university students, and examine the relationship between the Turkish students' discourse marker use and speech fluency. A corpus of informal interviews was compiled of interviews with 50 Turkish ELT students, and a native speaker corpus created at a UK university was obtained. The results showed that Turkish students used the discourse markers in textual functions in a higher proportion and interpersonal/interactional functions in a lower proportion, compared to the British students. The first-year Turkish students employed the markers significantly more frequently than their fourth-year peers. Moreover, there was a moderate, and significant relationship between discourse marker use, and their utterance and perceived fluency. These results were discussed in the light of the relevant literature, and various implications and suggestions were offered for teaching and further research.