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Discourse Markers: Functions Of /JaʿNi/ In Educated Egyptian Arabic, Amani Elshimi

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This is a study in conversation analysis focusing on the analysis of the discourse marker /jacni/ in Egyptian Arabic. Markers are defined as discourse deictic expressions that link together, and signal boundaries between, discourse structures. They operate on all three levels of discourse proposed by Halliday (1970) - textual, ideational and interpersonal. Using direct observation techniques, the distribution, form and function of the marker /jacni/ were examined in the language of educated Egyptian subjects on radio and television interviews. Two variables were taken into account - speaker gender and topic type. Using syntactic position and phonological form as guidelines for …