Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

part of the meaning of what has preceded, among which 
I mean
is mentioned 
as a possible device with a diminishing force; secondly, softening connectives 
or softeners, exemplified by 
you know
, 
I mean
, and 
you see
, which maintain 
the continuity of discourse and also seem to be used to express the speaker’s 
“assessment of the conversational situation as informal” (ibid.: 85).
Edmondson (1981) introduces the term ‘fumbles’ for standardized 
expressions or fixed formulae the main function of which is “to plug speaking-
turn-internal conversational gaps” used by the speaker to gain time, viewing them 
as “conventionalized ways of plugging such potential gaps” (ibid.: 154), with the 
result that in fact no such gaps are perceived by the interlocutors. One of the five 
groups of fumbles the author distinguishes is a group of let-me-explains, among 
which 
I mean
is considered to be most common of all; according to Edmondson, 
it is used “to communicate the fact that I’m trying to communicate” (ibid.: 154-
155).
I mean
is also mentioned by Leech et al. (1992) when specifying linguistic 
characteristics of speech among monitoring features that are present in ‘typical’ 
speech and which “indicate the speaker’s awareness of the addressee’s presence 
and reactions” (ibid.: 136-140);
among examples they include 
as well
,
 I mean
, 
sort of
and 
you know
.
Stenström (1994), who uses the term monitor for 
I mean
, holds the view 
that “sometimes the speaker needs to make a new start or rephrase what s/he 
was going to say in the middle of a turn, often because the listener shows that 
s/he cannot follow or is not convinced” (ibid.: 131-132). In such situations the 
monitor “
I mean
comes in handy” and tends to co-occur with
 well
and sometimes 
even with 
you know
or
 you see
. Similar co-occurrences of 
I mean
and some other 
markers have been found in my data, too.
It is also worth quoting Swan (1995: 329), who claims that 
I mean
is used “to 
introduce explanations or additional details” and belongs among other correcting 
and softening DMs, such as 
I think
,
 I feel
,
 I suppose
,
 I guess
,
 so to speak
(ibid.: 
156-157). The author gives two examples in which 
I mean 
is used: 
Let’s meet 
next Monday – 
I mean
 Tuesday 
and 
She is not very nice. 
I mean
, I know some 
people like her, but …
The former illustrates the correcting and the latter the 
softening function of DMs as understood by Swan (cf. softening connectives or 
softeners in Crystal 1975, mentioned above).