International Journal of Language & Linguistics

The Pragmatic Functions of ‘Mashi’ in Modern Arabic Language
Hamid I. Al-Shishtawi

Abstract
The discourse marker „mashi‟, literally means „walking‟, has gained a variety of pragmatic (i.e. contextual) meanings over time; and has become one of the most common discourse markers in daily interactions among Arabs. Data has been collected from the website Arabicorpus where more than 400 instances of the DM „mashi‟ were found. The study enumerates 28 different functions of the DM „mashi‟ depending on its contextual realizations: threatening, approval, walking, end the speech, etc. The sample of the study consists of all 65 English language Ph.D students in two divisions in The University of Jordan, 47 questionnaires data were tested. The results indicated that the use of the word Mashi was understood to 87.9% by the sample of the study.

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