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Use of discourse markers in direct reports

501f

Direct reports often contain discourse markers such as erm, oh, well, which may

or may not have been part of the original utterance:

When we first moved into the house we had a cup of tea. You know, they made

us that horrible herbal tea stuff. And then of course we had to sit in the living

room. And they were just saying, ‘

Oh well what are you doing today?’ Like that.

And my mum and dad said, ‘

Oh I think we’ll just you know do a little bit of

food shopping.’

[a work placement is when a person, typically a student, works somewhere

without pay for a short time to gain experience]

About two or three weeks ago I phoned them up and said, ‘Can I do a work

placement?’ And they said, ‘

Well, fax us a letter saying when.’ So I did.