Language which is not taught: The discourse marker use of beginning adult learners of English

This study investigated the classroom interaction and in-home, bilingual interviews of 17 adult learners of English with no previous formal English language instruction in order to find the frequency of use and some functions of forms of language which are not explicitly taught: the discourse markers well, you know, and like. Previous findings in this area are based most often on data from more advanced language learners and do not present a clear picture of which learners use these markers more often or why. Results of the current study show that this set of learners uses few discourse markers. A review of the focal students’ background information (including language use patterns outside the classroom) suggests that the students who use more discourse markers may be the students who are more acculturated to the US. This suggests that the students who comprise the population at the data collection site, in general, remain, to some degree, isolated from English language culture in the US.