International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Investigating Discourse Markers in Paragraph Writing of EFL Female-students At Najran University
Hanan Mohammed Freaha, Ph.D; Umalhussein Adam Mohammad- Ph.D

Abstract
Discourse markers are connecting words that have an important role in writing. The aim of the study was to investigate discourse markers in paragraph writing of twenty-six EFL Saudi female students at Najran University (college of Languages & Translation). The study adopted Fraser's (2009) taxonomy to classify the targeted discourse markers. The results indicated that the 'Elaborative' markers had the highest frequency, followed by the 'Inferential' markers, then the 'Contrastive' markers and the 'Temporal' markers were the least employed. In addition, variation of the number of usages among markers existed, in that, 'and', 'but', 'because' counted the highest frequencies. These results confirmed the study hypotheses. Finally, the researchers recommend enhancing writing by intensive presentation of discourse markers. Employing the appropriate English discourse marker, definitely promotes producing the communicative language skills.

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