DISCOURSE MARKERS AND THE REDUCTION OF COMMUNICATIVE BARRIERS IN PROFESSIONALLY ORIENTED ENGLISH TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26565/2074-8922-2026-86-18
Purpose. The article aims to synthesize scholarly approaches to the study of discourse markers and related constructs in order to clarify the mechanisms through which DM-oriented instruction contributes to reducing communicative barriers among university students in EFL/ESP contexts, as well as to outline the pedagogical conditions for its effective implementation.
Methods. The study employed theoretical analysis and synthesis, including the review of scholarly literature, the comparison of existing approaches, and the integration of their key findings.
Results. The analysis showed that communicative barriers in EFL/ESP arise not only from linguistic inaccuracy but also from discourse-related and interactional difficulties affecting coherence, interaction management, negotiation of meaning, and pragmatic appropriateness. Across the reviewed studies, discourse markers emerged as pedagogically relevant resources in four interrelated domains. First, in coherence and cohesion, they help make causal, contrastive, temporal, and inferential relations explicit, thereby reducing inferential burden and improving discourse transparency. Second, in interaction management, they support topic entry, redirection, summarizing, and sequence closure, which makes spoken interaction more predictable and manageable. Third, in repair and negotiation of meaning, discourse markers facilitate clarification, reformulation, and comprehension checks, enabling students to address misunderstanding without disrupting interaction. Fourth, in pragmatic positioning, they contribute to mitigation, stance marking, and politeness, helping students align their utterances with academic and professional norms. The review also indicated that the pedagogical value of discourse markers depends on treating them not as isolated linking words but as functionally and contextually sensitive resources. Their instructional potential is strengthened through explicit noticing, guided practice, genre-sensitive tasks, and systematic feedback that support transfer into students’ spoken and written performance.
Conclusions. The study suggests that DM-oriented instruction can reduce communicative barriers in EFL/ESP by improving coherence, interaction management, meaning negotiation, and pragmatic appropriateness. Further research should test its effectiveness across different settings, genres, proficiency levels, and modes of communication.
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References
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