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Japanese Discourse markers and fillers
Here’s the short Japanese dialogue we listened to:
Here’s the English dialogue from the textbook, Communication Spotlight 2:
Both of these have fillers, so both sound natural, but the English one is somewhat edited so that it’s easy to listen to, as well as containing lots of discourse markers, fillers and backchannels.
What are discourse markers and filler words?
Discourse markers are words and phrases that connect and organise the flow of discourse: they tell listeners or readers where the text is going, when you are changing topic, your attitude towards the topics and so on.
One group of discourse markers are called ‘fillers’. Filler words and phrases are used to fill silence when you’re speaking. They’re words that don’t add any real value to the sentence. They simply keep you going while you come up with the rest of your sentence. In English words such as “em”, and “er” are typical fillers.
When are fillers used in English?
Filler words are only used in speaking, not in writing. This is because when we speak, we need time to figure out what to say. That’s when you can use filler words. Fillers “fill in” the space while we are thinking. (Texting is a special case: it’s writing, but it often operates like speaking, so people often ‘write-as-they-speak’ in text messages.)
Filler words are used for a number of reasons:
- to show that you’re thinking. Use filler words when you need to think about your answer or statement. For example:
“There are erm… about fifteen people coming to the party.”
- to stall for time, when you don’t quite know how to answer the question, or when you don’t want to answer it. For example, when a teacher asks “Where’s your homework?,” the student might reply:
“Er … Umm …Well, you see … I forgot it.”
- To soften what you say, to make it less harsh. For example, if you realise that your friend has said something that’s incorrect you could say, “That’s wrong” but it is more polite to say,
“Well, you’re, um, not quite right.”
- to include the listener in the conversation. For example:
“I was so disappointed, you know?”
- To make your statement weaker or stronger or to indicate your attitude towards the topic. For example:
“I don’t like horror movies” is different from,
“Actually, I don’t like horror movies.” Using ”actually” indicates that you are contrasting your opinion with that of someone else who does like horror movies.
It is also different from,
“At the end of the day, I don’t like horror movies.” Here, “At the end of the day” indicates that you are expressing your conclusion to the discussion.
Backchannels
Backchannels are signals we give to the speaker to show that we are listening and that we are interested. They are used while one person is speaking, not to interrupt, but to encourage the person to continue.
Typical backchannels:
uh-huh right
OK no way!
yes, I see very true
hmmmMm
Discourse markers and fillers examples
Japanese discourse markers