Rizalia S.

Garcia
A class of linguistic devices that includes words and expressions like anyway,
but, yknow, mind you, and many others are discourse markers w h i c h
have been of substantial interest to researchers studying situated language use
because of their role in demarcating discourse connections as well as their potential
for indexing social relationships. Discourse markers are words or phrases that
function primarily as a structuring unit of spoken language. To the listener, a
DM signals the speaker's intention to mark a boundary in discourse, such as
the beginning of a new topic or the expression of a response: ( Fr a s e r ,
1 9 9 9 ; J u c ke r & Z i v , 1998; Lenk, 1998; Schiffrin, 1987).
1. You know = gained popularity as an interjection during the early 1960's, as
television began to take over pop culture. The phrase serves as a conversational
breather and has no real contextual meaning. Its usage has remained steady, I
would say, no more frequent than it was back then.
Listen to high school chatter today and you'll hear the word 'like' similarly used
as a meaningless interjection. It's simply a device, to keep the conversation flowing
and to make discourse with one's peers.

You know is among the most common of these hesitation forms. Its
meaning is not the imperious 'you understand' or even the old interrogatory
'do you get it?' It is given as, and taken to be, merely a filler phrase, intended
to fill a beat in the flow of sound, not unlike like, in its new sense of, like, a
filler word. . . .
These staples of modern filler communication--I mean, you know, like--can
also be used as 'tee-up words. In olden times, pointer phrases or tee-up
words were get this, would you believe? and are you ready? The function of
these nudging phrases was--are you ready?--to make the point, to focus the
listener's attention on what was to follow.
"If the purpose is to tee up a point, we should accept you know and its
friends as a mildly annoying spoken punctuation, the articulated colon that
signals 'focus on this. If the purpose is to grab a moment to think, we should
allow ourselves to wonder: Why are filler phrases needed at all? What
motivates the speaker to fill the moment of silence with any sound at all?"
(William Safire, Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade.
Random House, 1997)
"Hey, hey, shh, shh, shh. Come on. Be sensitive to the fact that
other people are not comfortable talking about emotional
disturbances. Um, you know, I am, I'm fine with that, but . . . other

people."

2. Mind you = is an expression that is used to draw attention to an important

fact that is important to a statement. It also emphasizes on the other hand.
Consider the examples below:

a. That sweater really doesn't fit her. Mind you, that is a nice sweater. I can
see why she picked it.
b. He's very untidy about the house; mind you, I'm not much better.

Mind you is much wider used in British as opposed to American English. It

is described as operating in two ways. First, mind you operates in its original
source meaning as an attention marker which summons the hearer's
attention through its imperative form to a repetition of, or elaboration on,
information already presented in the discourse. In this use, the speaker
wants to be sure that the hearer understands the full import of the
highlighted information. However, this was a very infrequent use of mind
you. Second, in its most frequent occurrence, mind you is used as a mainly
non-concessive discourse marker. In this function, mind you often abruptly
shifts the focus of the discourse away from the ideational content of the
discourse onto the process of discourse construction itself by making overt
the speaker's own meaning making processes and his or her shifting
commitment to previous arguments. In this way, the use of mind you
suggests unplanned, spontaneous meaning making. It is also argued that the
way mind you signals cancellation or a weakening of an aspect of information
derivable from the previous discourse is often achieved through self-deprecation.
The whole process of laying bare those inner workings and especially the use of

self-deprecation fosters interactive warmth by promoting intimacy and

solidarity between the speaker and hearer.
3. Even so = is an adverb which has one sense and is defined as anything
despite to the contrary or despite what has just been said and usually follow a

compromise. It is similar to however, nevertheless, nonetheless, notwithstanding, in

spite of that.
.

Examples:

a. That may be true, but even so we will investigate further, or she claimed it
contained no garlic, but even so I could taste it.
b. I had a terrible headache, but even so I went to the concert.
c. An immediate interest cut might give a small boost to the economy. Even so, any
recovery is likely to be very slow.
c. This place fills up with tourists in the summer, but even so, there are plenty of
places for them to stay.
d.I know you claim not to care about the breakup; even so, you keep talking about
it.

4. Believe it or not

The phrase "Believe it or not," introduces something that the listener might
be surprised to hear. For example, an out-of-shape older man might tell his
niece:
Believe it or not, I used to be a championship swimmer back in high
school.
People mostly use "believe it or not" to talk about something that's surprising
to the listener. But sometimes people also use it sarcastically. For example, if
your spouse tries to give you advice while you're driving, you might say:
Believe it or not, I do know how to drive, you know.
This phrase is an idiomatic expression, prefixed to statements that are told as true
facts, but are deemed to be hard to believe, as in: "Believe it or not,
blackberries are not berries!"
Believe it or not is used at the beginning sentence to state that something is true
whether one chooses to believe it or not. ex. "Believe it or not, I still care for
her."(Its true, whether you agree or not)

5. Just as well
is used to say that an occurrence, or situation, is not only fortunate, but that for the
contrary, it could have been a lot worse or that something at the first glance might
seem bad, is actually good just because it could have been even much worse or
because the alternative case or cases could have been even much worse. It is a
good thing to do, or a lucky thing to happen or be done.

This expression is usually used with be.

egs.

It's just as well. (It is a good thing.)

It's beginning to rain - it's just as well that we brought our umbrellas.
It's just as well you're not here - you wouldn't like the noise
He left at three, which was just as well or he'd have missed the train.
It would be as well to check the small print.

References:
Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Copyright 1997.
Published by Houghton Mifflin
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus. Cambridge University Press
Andreas H. Jucker. Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory
Websters New World AMERICAN IDIOMS HANDBOOK
English Language and Linguistics online May 1997 1 : pp 91-110
David M. Bell Journal of Pragmatics Copyright 2012 Elsevier
Bruce Fraser An approach to discourse markers
Lenk, 1998.Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken English
Schiffrin, 1987. Marking Discourse Coherence: Functions of Discourse Markers in
Spoken English

William Safire, Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade.

Random House, 1997)