Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

SS
: LAUGH> the way they vote. [
SU-f
: yeah] so you don’t re- 
really learn too much from my (p-) they’re just like vote, uh whatever.
S1
 they they told you to vote?
S5
well 
I mean
 over time they’re like, yeah I’ll uh, okay they’re conservative 
so, they’re like, they just kinda, say stuff like liberals don’t really know 
what they’re talking about and that kinda stuff.
S1
 okay
Note: It should be noted here that short pauses are indicated by dots, while long pauses are 
indicated by commas in all texts taken from MICASE.
The function of 
I mean
comes only second when it is used as a delay device. 
The normalized frequency rate 0.74 tokens per 1,000 words represents slightly 
more than 33 per cent of all occurrences found in my corpus. 
I mean
occurs in 
this function when the current speaker wants to gain more time to think over what 
next to say, which happens relatively frequently in study groups (1.74), where 
I mean
as a delay device is applied almost as frequently as when introducing 
explanations and clarifications (2.07). This finding can result from the fact that 
all the speakers in study groups are students who seem to take plenty of time to 
think over what next to say, as, for instance, Speaker 3 in Example (2): 
(2) (SGR 999SU146.30)
S2
well no but I can’t even I can’t e- like if um you wanted to talk to me about 
a topic that I feel like I’ve had a lot of classes in like equality or just like 
liberal thought in [
S3
: mhm] general or something like that, like, I w- 
don’t think I’d be very good at the conversation.

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