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Abstract Discourse markers are words or phrases, such as well, but, and frankly, which usually occur at the beginning of an utterance and serve as conceptual glue which binds together the material from the preceding utterance to that of the following sentence. Though they are homophonous with lexical items, they are separate linguistic entities, with distinct meanings, and are essential for making a conversation sound natural and unstilted. While the second language learner will acquire these elements late in the acquisition process, they will encounter them early on and should become familiar with them. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview of discourse markers and to briefly discuss teaching discourse markers in a second language.
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