Applied Linguistics: 31/2: 260–281 ß Oxford University Press 2009

doi:10.1093/applin/amp026 Advance Access published on 18 June 2009

Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and

Textbooks: The Case of Well

PHOENIX W. Y. LAM
The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

Discourse particles are ubiquitous in spoken discourse. Yet despite their perva-
siveness very few studies attempt to look at their use in the pedagogical setting.
Drawing on data from an intercultural corpus of speech and a textbook database,
the present study compares the use of discourse particles by expert users of
English in Hong Kong with their descriptions and presentations in textbooks
designed for learners of English in the same community. Specifically, it investi-
gates the similarities and differences in the use of the discourse particle well
between the two datasets in terms of its frequency of occurrence, its positional
preference and its discourse function. Results from the analysis show that there
are vast differences as regards how the particle well is used in real-world exam-
ples and how its use is described and presented in teaching materials. This raises
the question to what extent foreign language learners who have minimal expo-
sure to naturally-occurring spoken interactions in English could effectively
master the use of discourse particles if they solely rely on these textbooks.

INTRODUCTION
Discourse particles such as okay, so and well are syntactically optional linguistic
items which have no or little propositional value but serve important prag-
matic functions. Apart from the term ‘discourse particle’ (see, for example,
Aijmer 2002; Fischer 2006), there is no shortage of contenders which are
used in similar and often partly overlapping ways in research,1 including ‘dis-
course marker’ (see, for example, Schiffrin 1987; Schourup 2001) and ‘prag-
matic marker’ (see, for example, Watts 1988; Brinton 1996). Because of their
importance as ‘sharing devices and intimacy signals in our everyday talk’
(Quirk 1955: 179), they are indispensable in spoken discourse. In the pedagog-
ical setting, however, discourse particles are often dismissed as a sign of dys-
fluency and their use discouraged (Erman 1987). Although in recent years an
increasing number of studies have pointed out that the use of discourse par-
ticles contributes to the pragmatic and communicative competence of speakers
(Wierzbicka 1991; Müller 2005) and hence is an essential aspect of language
that learners should master, very few have actually looked at the coverage of
discourse particles in teaching materials. Previous studies of discourse particles
related to language learning, if any, rest on reporting the misuse by learners,
judged by the comparison with native data from outside the learners’ commu-
nity. The pedagogical significance of discourse particles in the foreign language
classroom is therefore severely understudied (Fung and Carter 2007). As an
 P. W. Y. LAM 261

attempt to bridge this gap, the present study looks at how the discourse particle
well is used by expert speakers in an intercultural spoken corpus in Hong Kong
and how it is described and presented in textbooks designed for learners within
the same community. In particular, the frequency of occurrence, positional
preference, and discourse functions of the particle in the two data sources
will be compared both qualitatively and quantitatively to investigate the
extent to which textbook data reflects real-world usage.
A typical example of discourse particles, well is one of the most frequently
occurring items and probably the most thoroughly researched (Schourup

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

2001; Aijmer 2002). Its high frequencies of occurrence in the two data sources
enable a meaningful quantitative analysis to be conducted. Its versatility in
serving different pragmatic functions in discourse has been well-documented
in previous studies (see, for example, Lakoff 1973; Schiffrin 1987).
Consequently, its pragmatic functions may have been better understood
than others, which in turn allows for a more reliable comparison to be made
between its actual use and textbook descriptions.

ROLE OF DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN PEDAGOGY

That language in textbooks often differs from language in use has been well-
reported in numerous studies. Areas which have been examined are wide-
ranging, with examples such as epistemic modality (Holmes 1988), future
time expressions (Mindt 1997), dialogues (Carter 1998; Wong 2002) and
multi-word lexical phrases (Koprowski 2005). What seems to be missing,
though, is the study of the role of discourse particles in the pedagogical con-
text, especially given the enormous attention these items have received over
the years in discourse analysis. As items which occur frequently in speech,
discourse particles are characteristic of the spoken language. Their importance
in everyday talk can hardly be overstated. Discourse particles facilitate the
processes of interpretation and social involvement in spoken interaction
(Watts 1988). They are essential to the maintenance of conversational coop-
eration (Leech and Svartvik 2002). Acting as a discourse lubricant, they ensure
interactions go on smoothly. From a pedagogical perspective, failing to master
the use of discourse particles may seriously impair the communicative com-
petence of learners (Wierzbicka 1991). Without these items in their speech,
learners may come across as unnatural, dogmatic and/or incoherent, hence
leading to a greater possibility of communicative failure (Fraser 1990; Brinton
1996).
Despite their ubiquity in speech and their importance in discourse and
pedagogy, discourse particles are largely overlooked in language learning,
with only a few studies exploring their (mis)use by learners of English.
Romero Trillo (2002), for example, investigates the development of pragmatic
markers including listen, well, and you know in the speech of Spanish speakers
of English. His study shows that the non-native adults’ usage of discourse
particles is even more limited than that of native children in terms of both
262 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

quantity and diversity. Such a shortage of discourse particles in the speech

of the non-native speakers, he argues, could make their speech sound blunt
and impolite. Similarly, Müller (2004, 2005) reports differences in the use of
discourse markers by German EFL speakers and American native speakers in
a movie-telling experiment. Non-native data, for instance, exhibit fewer func-
tions of well when compared with native data. Her findings point to the pos-
sible influence of textbooks in the use of discourse particles by German
learners, though only a cursory examination of the items well and so in text-
books based on the ratio of occurrence of the two elements is presented. The

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

use of pragmatic markers in Xhosa English, a sub-variety of Black African
English, is the focus of de Klerk (2005). Differences found in the use of well
by Xhosa speakers of English and native speakers again are linked to the
observation that discourse particles are largely overlooked in the local educa-
tional system, though no empirical evidence is given. Recently, Fung and
Carter (2007) have investigated the production of discourse markers in peda-
gogic settings using data of British native speakers and Hong Kong learners
of English. Similar to the findings presented in Romero Trillo (2002), Fung
and Carter (2007) report that native speakers use a wider range of discourse
markers including actually, right, and well to achieve a broader variety of prag-
matic functions such as marking responses and attitudes. This leads to their
conclusion that the misuse of discourse particles can be a communication
obstacle for learners.
While the comparative studies discussed above offer valuable insights into
the differences in the use of discourse particles by native and non-native
speakers of English, they only hint at some possible pedagogical implications.
Specifically, whether and how discourse particles are taught remains an unset-
tled issue. Admittedly, the study of the production of discourse particles by
language learners could help us identify the potential problems they have in
using these items. Equally important at the same time, however, is the issue
of how discourse particles are presented in teaching materials and whether
these learning resources genuinely mirror naturally-occurring language. As
pointed out in many studies, textbooks play a central role in syllabus design
and lesson planning (Olson 1980; Kramsch 1988). For EFL learners who do
not always have the opportunities to immerse in an English-speaking environ-
ment outside the foreign language classroom, textbooks constitute the bread
and butter of their language learning experience. In the context of Hong Kong,
the centrality of textbooks can be best summarized by Reynolds’ (1974: 41)
observation: ‘the textbook is taught, not the students’. The role of textbooks
is therefore of particular importance when it comes to supplying learners with
the right information as regards one of the most common features in spoken
English.
Another important issue which is raised by the above review concerns a
popular comparative approach used in previous studies, namely the dichotomy
between native and non-native speakers of English. In recent years, however,
the very concept of native speakers of a language has been increasingly
 P. W. Y. LAM 263

challenged (Davies 2003, 2004), particularly following the rise of the global
role of English (Graddol 1997, 2006). The prevalence of intercultural encoun-
ters in English has also generated the heated debate on the ownership of the
language. In the field of English language teaching, there have been rising
reservations about whether EFL learners should follow native English
models as ‘standards’ given the possible historical, cultural and contextual
differences concerned (see, for example, Kachru 1996; Seidlhofer 2002), not
to mention the implications of language imperialism and cultural hegemony
(Phillipson 1992; Pennycook 1998). In order to compare the actual perfor-

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

mance of competent speakers with teaching materials used in the same com-
munity, the present study makes use of data from an intercultural corpus
of speech of ‘successful users of English’ (Prodromou 2003) in the context of
Hong Kong. As interlocutors in the corpus are all effective communicators of
English regardless of their first language, they reflect more faithfully the actual
usage and thus language needs of the local community than native speakers
from elsewhere do. As Bhatt (2005: 48, emphasis mine) rightly puts it, ‘stan-
dard language has to be treated as endonormatively evolving from within each
community according to its own histories and cultures of usage. Standards
can’t be imposed exonormatively from outside one community’. A comparison
of Hong Kong textbook data with naturally-occurring examples from the same
community thus is deemed more suitable as it relevantly and realistically
contrasts local uses and needs of language with local training and practice
as provided by textbooks. This does not imply, however, that findings from
the present study are only pertinent to the restricted context of Hong Kong.
Rather, the present study contributes to the important discussion of the appro-
priate language models for EFL learners and illustrates how a spoken corpus of
intercultural encounters can be exploited to investigate the natural usage of
particles in an ever-increasing number of intercultural communities around
the globe, where the language backgrounds of speakers are becoming more
and more diverse and complex.

DATA AND METHOD

In the present study, data are drawn from two sources, namely the Hong Kong
Corpus of Spoken English (HKCSE thereafter) and a textbook database. The
HKCSE is an intercultural corpus containing approximately 1 million words of
naturally-occurring speech (see Cheng et al. 2005, for further details of the
corpus). Compiled between the mid-1990s and the turn of the millennium, the
corpus consists of 311 texts which are primarily intercultural encounters in
English between Hong Kong Chinese whose first language is Cantonese and
speakers of languages other than Cantonese, though in a few settings only
Hong Kong Chinese are involved. As the main purpose of building the
HKCSE is to investigate the linguistic features of spoken English produced
by successful users of English in Hong Kong in a variety of academic, business,
social and professional settings, participants in the corpus are all competent
264 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

speakers of English who regularly and successfully communicate in English

either professionally or socially. Through years of formal education and exten-
sive interactions with other expert speakers, they have come to represent
a cross-section of the adult population in Hong Kong who obtain a high pro-
ficiency in English regardless of their mother tongue. As far as the communi-
cative competence in English in the context of Hong Kong is concerned, they
probably better signify what school students may aspire to become than native
speakers from an external community.
To provide a description of discourse particles in teaching materials which

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

is lacking in the literature and to compare particle usage in ‘real’ English and
‘school’ English, a database consisting of English textbooks collected in Hong
Kong was created. Textbooks designed for upper secondary students in Hong
Kong were chosen because teaching materials at that level have a strong
focus on the spoken language. This is largely owing to the popular demand
from the local market to cater for the preparation of the university-entry public
oral examination which consists of two assessment tasks, namely an individual
presentation and a group discussion with other candidates. Presumably, these
coursebooks should have a more extensive coverage of oral features such
as discourse particles than textbooks at other levels. Altogether 15 textbooks
which represent a sample of mainstream English coursebooks designed specif-
ically for upper-secondary students in Hong Kong were collected and
analysed.2 Produced by seven publishers from the year 1994 to 2003, the
coursebooks selected are used for the 2-year long upper-secondary study in
Hong Kong. Two-thirds are specifically designed for the training of oral skills
while the remaining are general textbooks which cover the four skills of lis-
tening, reading, speaking and writing. In the general textbooks, only the
speaking section is examined. To facilitate comparisons with the HKCSE and
among teaching materials, all textbooks in the database contain some teaching
points or explanations. Drill exercise books which only consist of gap-filling
practice materials or exam papers are not included.
Previous studies of teaching materials have provided very few guiding
principles as regards what should be included in a textbook database (Nelson
2000), especially when quantitative analysis is conducted. To give a compre-
hensive account of well in the textbooks examined, the present study provides
a qualitative and quantitative account of the descriptions and actual usage of
the particle in context in textbooks. Accordingly, the contents of the textbooks
are categorized into two parts: the teaching section and the sample section. The
teaching section contains teaching points, explanations and short examples
of language which are suggested to be used in presentations and discussions.
These examples are only studied qualitatively to see if textbook descriptions
of well mirror usage in corpus data. The sample section contains ‘model’ pre-
sentations and discussions which are suggested to be exemplary texts for
the local oral examination. These sample texts resemble the basic structures
of naturally-occurring presentations and discussions and thus are analysed
both qualitatively and quantitatively just as texts in the HKCSE. This draws
 P. W. Y. LAM 265

a direct comparison of the use of well between invented texts in textbooks and
naturally-occurring data in the HKCSE. While the present study is concerned
with the use of well as a discourse particle (D-use), the propositional use of
the word (P-use) will also be briefly discussed to demonstrate how typically the
word achieves discourse functions.

FINDINGS

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

This section examines and compares the use of well in the HKCSE and the
textbook database. In particular, the analysis focuses on three aspects of D-use
well, namely its frequency of occurrence, position and discourse function.
Because of the nature of the data, quantitative analyses on these three aspects
are not carried out in the textbook teaching section.

Frequency of occurrence
One of the most striking differences between naturally-occurring data in the
HKCSE and sample texts in the textbook database in relation to the discourse
use of well is the rate at which the particle appears in discourse. Table 1 com-
pares the use of well in the two datasets under investigation.
A number of observations can be made from Table 1. First, there is a con-
siderable difference in terms of the total number of well in the two sample
text types in textbooks. While the total number of words in textbook discus-
sions (n = 13,032) is only 20% more than that in textbook presentations
(n = 10,817), the number of well in discussion texts is twelve times more
than that in presentations (n = 117 versus n = 9). This indicates that the word
occurs much more frequently in textbook discussions. In addition, there is
a huge discrepancy in the discourse-function ratio of well (D-use/total use as

Table 1: The comparison of well in the textbook sample section and in the
HKCSE
Textbook Textbook HKCSE
presentations discussions (N = 311)
(N = 38) (N = 11)

Total number of words 10,817 13,032 949,972

Total number of well 9 117 2,714
Number of D-use 1 107 1,913
Number of P-use 8 10 796
Unclassified use 0 0 5
D-use/total use (%) 11.11 91.45 67.99
D-rate (per 10,000 words) 0.92 82.11 19.56
266 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

expressed in per cent) between the two sample text types. While only 11.11%
of instances of well are used as a discourse particle in textbook presentations,
the percentage rises to 91.45% in textbook discussion texts. This shows that
when the word is used it is most likely to be a particle in textbook discussions
and vice versa in presentations. In consequence, the textbooks give a strong
impression that well as a discourse particle is highly common in discussions
but almost nonexistent in presentations.
Such a noticeable contrast in the number of D-use well in textbook presen-
tations (n = 1) and discussions (n = 107) is reflected in the discourse rate of well

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

in the two text types. The discourse rate here refers to the number of discourse
use of well in a sample of 10,000 words. In a 10,000-word sample of textbook
presentations, the discourse rate of well is merely 0.92. In textbook discussions,
on the other hand, the discourse rate is 82.11. Again, this signifies that the dis-
course use of well occurs considerably more frequently in textbook discussions
than in textbook presentations.
When compared with corpus data, the use of well in textbooks also shows
highly contrastive patterns. As regards the discourse–function ratio, textbook
discussions have the highest figure among the three data sources while the
ratio in textbook presentation texts is unusually low. A similar pattern can
be observed concerning the discourse rate of well, with the highest rate found
in textbook discussion texts and the lowest in textbook presentations. These
findings appear to suggest an irregularity in the discourse rate of well in text-
books when compared with naturally-occurring data. This is substantiated by
a further comparison between textbook texts and their corresponding text
types in the corpus. Given the rather formal and overwhelmingly monologic
nature of sample presentations in textbooks, they are compared with business
presentations, lectures and speeches in the HKCSE. For textbook discussions
which involve a clear agenda and the negotiation of ideas, business interviews,
meetings and public TV talk shows in the corpus are chosen for contrast. The
comparison of the discourse rate of well in some major monologic texts in
the HKCSE and in textbook presentations is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: The comparison of the discourse rate of well in presentations in the

HKCSE and in the textbook sample section
Data source Text type Discourse rate of well
(per 10,000 words)

HKCSE Business presentation 5.47

Lecture 12.20
Speech 5.07
Textbook database Sample presentation 0.92
 P. W. Y. LAM 267

Table 2 illustrates a marked difference between textbook and naturally-

occurring presentations in terms of the discourse rate of well. In heavily
scripted business presentations and public speeches in the HKCSE, the
discourse rate of well is at least five times more than that in textbook presenta-
tions. The difference is even more apparent if textbook presentations are
compared with lectures in the corpus, which are more spontaneous in
nature. If these textbook presentations are designed to teach students the
features of spoken language in contexts which they are most likely to encoun-
ter in future, one may wonder why textbook presentations have such a low

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

discourse rate of well.
Interestingly, the contrast in the discourse rate of well between textbook
and naturally-occurring discussions shows exactly opposite results. Table 3
compares the discourse rate of well in some major discussion texts in the
HKCSE and in textbook discussions.
Table 3 shows that the sample discussions in textbooks have a much higher
discourse rate of well when compared with discussion texts in naturally-
occurring speech. The rate in textbooks (82.11 per 10,000 words) is at least
twice the rates in the HKCSE, which only range from 22.13 to 34.65. This
suggests that there is an unusually high rate of D-use well in textbook discus-
sions when compared with similar texts in corpus data. Again, it remains
doubtful why the particle well should be used so frequently in these textbook
discussions if they reflect natural usage.

Position
In the discussion of the position of discourse particles, various units of talk
have been considered, including turn, utterance, tone unit, sentence and
clause-element (see, for example, Stenström 1990; Jucker and Ziv 1998;
Schourup 1999). The term utterance is used in this study as it probably
better accommodates features such as fillers, incomplete structures and over-
lapping speech which are common in spontaneous spoken discourse than
notions such as sentences and clauses which are more geared towards

Table 3: The comparison of the discourse rate of well in discussions in the

HKCSE and in the textbook sample section
Data source Text type Discourse rate of well
(per 10,000 words)

HKCSE Business interview 22.13

Business meeting 30.33
Public TV talk show 34.65
Textbook database Sample discussion 82.11
268 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

the written language than the spoken language. Following Stenström (1994:
226), an utterance is defined as ‘anything that a speaker says’. Table 4 com-
pares the distribution of utterance position of D-use well in the HKCSE and
the textbook sample section.
As a discourse particle, well mostly occurs in utterance initial and medial
positions in the HKCSE. Altogether tokens in these two positions constitute
96% of the total number of discourse use of well. Specifically, more than half
of the discourse tokens of well (57.9%) are utterance initial, with a slightly lower
proportion of occurrences (38.1%) embedded in discourse. The use of well as a

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

discourse particle in utterance initial position is illustrated in Example 1:3
(1)
Well you’re really busy . . .
(HKCSE, A041)

Example 2 shows an instance of well in medial position serving discourse

function:
(2)
. . . so let’s talk about our flow well Hong Kong is . . .
(HKCSE, B154)

The textbooks examined, on the other hand, show a different positional dis-
tribution of the particle. Of the 108 instances of D-use well found in textbook
presentations and discussions, 97 instances occur at the beginning of an utter-
ance, making up 89.8% of the total number of pragmatic use. Example 3
shows an utterance initial well in a textbook discussion:
(3)
Well, look, let’s try to summarize what’s been said so far . . .
(Potter 2003a: 129)

In contrast, only eleven tokens (10.2%) are found medially, making them a
small minority in the textbook database. An utterance medial D-use well is

Table 4: The distribution of utterance position of D-use well in the HKCSE

and in the textbook sample section
Position D-use well in HKCSE D-use well in sample texts
in textbook database

Initial 1,107 (57.9%) 97 (89.8%)

Medial 728 (38.1%) 11 (10.2%)
Final 14 (0.7%) 0 (0.0%)
Stand-alone 64 (3.3%) 0 (0.0%)

Total 1,913 (100%) 108 (100%)

 P. W. Y. LAM 269

shown in Example 4:
(4)
O.K. What’s next? An airport . . . well, they’ll be coming by plane, so they’ll see the
new airport when they arrive . . .
(Sutton and Duncan 1999: 154)
In addition, no instances of D-use well are found in final and stand-alone
positions in textbooks, while a small number can be found in the corpus.
Example 5 shows the use of well as a single-word utterance from the HKCSE:

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

(5)
S1: mm Chung Kai does that satisfy you
S2: well
S1: probably not entirely I suspect ((laugh))
(HKCSE, P122)
As regards the main positions in which D-use well occupies, figures from
Table 4 clearly indicate that there is a much higher proportion of initial D-
use well and a much lower proportion of medial D-use well in textbooks when
compared with corpus data. The high percentage of well in initial position
in textbooks seems to suggest that initial D-use well is vastly dominant,
which unfortunately is not validated by the corpus findings.

Discourse function
This section first discusses the discourse functions of well as identified from
the HKCSE. This is followed by a qualitative analysis of how the discourse
functions of well are described in the teaching section of the textbooks.
Finally, a quantitative comparison of the functional distribution of D-use
well in the HKCSE and the textbook sample section is made.
In conducting a functional analysis of well, the present study follows a
bottom-up corpus-linguistic approach. In other words, the functional taxon-
omy developed in the analysis is derived from the recurrent patterns observed
in the datasets but not from a pre-existing framework or theory. This involves
rounds of modification before a classification scheme is devised to fully capture
the range of functions observed in the data. In total, 1,913 uses of well as
a discourse particle are examined in the HKCSE, of which 1,889 instances
are functionally categorized. 24 tokens are functionally unclassified owing to
insufficient contextual information. Six major functions of well are identified,
which can be categorized into three different domains: textual, interpersonal
and interactional. Instances of well expressing functions in the textual domain
are concerned with the structuring and organization of discourse. They largely
correspond to the text-oriented organizational unit (OT) in Linear Unit
Grammar (Sinclair and Mauranen 2006). In Halliday’s (1985) terms, they
achieve the textual meta-function. Interpersonal functions are related to the
expression of attitudes, emotions, and personal evaluations whereas interac-
tional functions facilitate processes such as planning and turn management
270 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

in the interaction. Tokens of well expressing functions in the interpersonal

and interactional domains in the present study realize Halliday’s (1985) inter-
personal meta-function. They largely correspond to the interactive-oriented
organizational unit (OI) in Linear Unit Grammar (Sinclair and Mauranen
2006). Admittedly, the classification of function is not always a straightforward
issue. After all, ‘natural language is not a sharp instrument with absolute or
rigid boundaries, but is blurred at the edges’ (Sinclair and Mauranen 2006: 61).
Yet given sufficient linguistic and contextual details, it is usually possible to
identify the key function in a single instance (Holmes 1984). The discourse

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

functions of well in the HKCSE are discussed in detail as follows.

Textual function
In the textual functional domain, well serves as a frame (Sinclair and Coulthard
1975) and a link. As noted in the Cambridge Grammar of English, these textual
uses of well ‘organize and monitor an ongoing discourse’ (Carter and McCarthy
2006: 901). The framing use of well to insert a point of division or transition
for easy comprehension is one of the most frequently occurring functions in
the corpus data. In these examples, well acts as a boundary marker in discourse
to signal transitions in topic and discourse stage. At times, it plays a role similar
to punctuation marks in the written language in dividing words into clauses
and sentences. In Example 6, the speaker uses well together with a meta-
linguistic comment let’s talk a little bit about conflict to indicate a topic change:
(6)
. . . but yet at the same time not violate our group harmony (.) yea it can be done (.)
it can be done okay well let’s talk a little bit about conflict why is conflict manage-
ment so important . . .
(HKCSE, B123)
Apart from segmenting texts, well could be used as a link to introduce explana-
tions and additional information to the preceding discourse. In their work
Cohesion in English, Halliday and Hasan (1976: 269) briefly describe this use
of well as an introducer of ‘an explanatory comment’. Similarly, the use of well
to continue an opinion or an answer is found in Müller (2005). Example 7
shows a speaker providing additional information about her supervisor follow-
ing an utterance medial well:
(7)
. . . so I start er to er write a proposal and I talk to my er supervisor er well he’s
a lecturer . . .
(HKCSE, B082)

Interpersonal function
In the interpersonal domain, the responsive use of well is the most dominant
among all the functions identified. This is in accordance with the observation
 P. W. Y. LAM 271

made in previous studies that well is commonly known as a marker of response

(Lakoff 1973; Schiffrin 1987). As a responsive signal, well is most frequently
associated with dispreferred responses such as disagreements and criticisms
(Lam 2006), though it is also found to preface direct answers and follow-up
responses in the HKCSE and other studies (see, for example, Schourup 2001;
Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2003; Müller 2005; Lam 2008). Example 8
illustrates the typical use of responsive well in a qualified answer. In combina-
tion with the phrase in many cases, it indicates that the speaker’s agreement
is only partial:

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

(8)
S1: so the separate rule you are talking about is actually a lower standard
S2: well in many cases yes er let me show you an example here . . .
(HKCSE, P102)
Another interpersonal function of well is the expression of feelings. In the
HKCSE, well is used to convey a range of feelings such as surprise, concession
and dismissal (cf. Carlson 1984; Carter and McCarthy 2006). Schourup (2001:
1043) describes this use of well as a ‘mental state interjection’, which shares
emotive properties with items such as ouch and wow. As a feeling carrier, well
is most commonly found in the HKCSE to convey a sense of resignation.
In Example 9, speaker S2 is talking to speaker S1 about her wedding night,
which fell within the tournament of the World Cup in 1990. As a football fan,
her husband told her that he would spend the whole wedding night watching
the World Cup matches. Speaker S1 first indicates his surprise at the husband’s
decision with two instances of oh dear. This is followed by a brief pause and
repeated uses of well to show a sense of helplessness and resignation:
(9)
S1:((laugh)) oh dear and he actually watched the world cup
S2:he watched it ((laugh))
S1:oh dear
S2:((laugh))
S1:a true a true football fan there but a bad husband really

S1: mm
S2:((laugh))
S1:yeah oh dear (.) well well well but er I take it he er you know it’s good it’s
good job the world cup didn’t last er very long right it comes around every four
years so it’s alright . . .
(HKCSE, C001)

Interactional function
In the interactional domain, well is used for processing purposes and turn
management. This is in accordance with corpus findings from the Longman
Grammar of Spoken and Written English, which suggest that discourse markers
‘facilitate the ongoing interaction’ (Biber et al. 1999: 140). As a processing
272 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

device, well allows speakers to signal to the other participants that some inter-
nal processing is going on and enables them to gain extra time for their turn.
Therefore, it is particularly useful for marking self repair and hesitation (cf.
Carter and McCarthy 2006). In Example 10, the speaker encounters a
word recovery problem when she talks about the element to which deriva-
tional morphemes are added. Notice her use of the filler um and the particle
well as place-holders while she undergoes some internal contemplation before
resting on her choice of the expression word stem among other options:

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

(10)
. . . but what I’m saying is (.) derivational morphemes they usually when they add
to um well when they add to a word stem they entail a change of meaning . . .
(HKCSE, A028)
Finally, well is used in turn management to signal speakers’ desire to take
control of the conversational floor either by floor-holding or turn-taking.
Example 11 shows the attempt by the listener (S2) to take the conversational
floor from the current speaker (S1) with the use of well when the speaker
is in the middle of his talk:
(11)
S1: er it’s between double and three times more

S2: well you know if you check with your
standards (.) we could set the same pay . . .
(HKCSE, B148)
In the teaching section of the textbook database, the focus of the teaching
materials is often on how to communicate effectively in presentations and
discussions, as these are the scenarios students have to face in the local oral
examination. Since these textbooks are mainly designed to achieve the goal
above, they are repeatedly filled with examples of speech functions which
are common in presentations and discussions. Example 12, for instance,
shows how the speech function ‘disagreeing with a suggestion’ is claimed
to be expressed by the following utterance (Sutton and Duncan 1999: 64):
(12)
Well, I don’t think that’s possible, because . . .
(Sutton and Duncan 1999: 64)
In other words, no paragraphs or sections separately discuss the discourse
functions of well. The various uses of the particle can only be found in exam-
ples showing how different speech functions are realized in the textbooks.
These examples are all short, detached instances of language with minimal
provision of contextual information such as Example 12. The functional deter-
mination of these examples of well is therefore largely based on the speech
function suggested by the textbook authors. An analysis of these instances
shows that all speech functions associated with well in the textbook teaching
section could be subsumed under the functional categories identified in the
HKCSE.
 P. W. Y. LAM 273

In the textual domain, well is found in examples related to the maintenance

of the overall flow of presentations and discussions. This includes initiating
a topic in a presentation, starting and ending a discussion and moving on to
the next point in a discussion. Example 13 illustrates the use of well as an
initiator in a textbook discussion text:
(13)
Well, shall I start? I suggest we divide our discussion into three parts . . .
(Leetch 2002: 62)

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

These examples in the textbooks highlight the discourse use of well in topic and
discourse stage management and largely correspond to the frame function
identified in the corpus. The use of well as a linking device, however, is not
discussed in the teaching section of the textbook database.
As regards the interpersonal aspect of well, no instances of D-use well in the
textbook teaching section are found to be associated with affective meaning.
The responsive function of well, however, can be readily observed in examples
illustrating how disagreements and qualified agreements should be expressed.
In one of the textbooks where well receives a brief mention, it is suggested that
well is one of the lexical items used to ‘soften disagreement and doubt’ (Potter
2003a: 42). However, it is not obvious how the word is used to achieve this
function as no examples are given in the textbook. Other kinds of dispreferred
responses associated with well in the teaching section include agreeing but not
in a very enthusiastic way (Esser 1999) and ‘avoiding giving an opinion’
(Sutton and Duncan 1999: 56). In addition, well is found as part of a textbook
example which serves to illustrate ‘disagreeing strongly with someone’ (ibid.),
reproduced here as Example 14:
(14)
Well, I really don’t agree at all!
(Sutton and Duncan 1999: 56)
As mentioned before, well is frequently associated with dispreferred responses
in the corpus. However, examples like the one above are not found in the
HKCSE. In fact, a cursory search reveals that the word combination well I really
don’t agree at all is not present in the corpus, nor does it seem to be a common
way to express disagreements in corpora of other varieties of English. While
creativity in language should not be discouraged, in this particular context it is
perhaps more helpful to exclude rare linguistic expressions, for they may run
the risk of misleading learners by providing examples of language which are
hardly used in natural interactions (Holmes 1988; Gilmore 2004; Koprowski
2005).
As far as the interactional aspect of well is concerned, the uses of well as a
processing device and as a turn managing signal are both found in the teaching
section. In one of the textbooks examined, it is suggested that the particle
is one of the ‘hesitation words’ along a wide range of lexical items such as
er, in fact and let me see which students could employ when they need time for
274 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

planning what to say (Potter 2003a: 25). With regard to turn management, well
is associated with the speech function ‘interrupting politely’ (Potter 2003b:
39). This corresponds to the turn-taking sub-type identified in the corpus.
Again, examples given in the textbook teaching section are decontextualized
and it remains unclear how the particle assists in politely taking the conver-
sational floor, as the preceding utterance is not provided. A case in point is
Example 15, which is given in a textbook to illustrate how to interrupt without
being rude:

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

(15)
Well, I think the solution is simple. We should . . .
(Potter 2003b: 39)
When compared with the textbook teaching section, the sample section gen-
erally provides more contextual information as the sample presentations
and discussions have structures resembling naturally-occurring texts of a
similar nature. Consequently, the functions of the particles can be examined
together with the linguistic co-texts in the samples. Table 5 compares the
functional distribution of D-use well in the textbook sample section and the
HKCSE.
As discussed in the previous section regarding the frequency of occurrence
of well in the textbooks, only a single instance of D-use well is found in sample
presentations, acting as a frame in the text. For sample discussions, the use of
well in responses constitutes 74 out of a total of 107 instances. It is therefore
the most dominant discourse function in textbook discussions, making up
more than two-thirds (69.2%) of the total. The framing use of well contributes
another 24.3%. The other four functions merely make up a small proportion
(6.5%) of use altogether.
In the HKCSE, the responsive and framing uses of well are most common.
Each constitutes roughly one-third of the total use. The remaining proportion
(29.6%) is shared between the other four functions, with the processing func-
tion being noticeably more dominant (17.7%) than the other three.
Table 5 thus essentially shows that there are major discrepancies concerning
the functional distribution of well in real-world situations and in teaching
materials. While it is true that the framing and responsive uses are the two
key pragmatic functions found in the corpus, the other four functions also add
up to a reasonable proportion in the data. In the textbooks, however, these
four functions only contribute a very small number of instances. In addition,
the responsive function of well appears to be over-emphasized while the frame
function is slightly overlooked in textbooks. When compared with findings
from the HKCSE, textbook discussions contain a considerably higher (69.2%
versus 37.5%) proportion of responsive well and a relatively lower proportion
of well as a frame (24.3% versus 32.9%). Given the proportions of framing
and responsive well in sample discussions and the negligible number of well
in sample presentations for textual organization, textbook writers seem to
pay excessive attention to well in responses while ignoring other important
Table 5: The functional distribution of well in the textbook sample section and in the HKCSE
Source of data Function Total

Framing Linking Responsive Emotive Processing Turn managing

Sample presentation texts Count 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

Percentage within 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0%
function
Sample discussion texts Count 26 1 74 2 3 1 107
Percentage within 24.3% 0.9% 69.2% 1.9% 2.8% 0.9% 100.0%
function
HKCSE Count 621 70 708 70 335 85 1889
Percentage within 32.9% 3.7% 37.5% 3.7% 17.7% 4.5% 100.0%
function
P. W. Y. LAM
275

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

276 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

discourse functions such as framing which are also highly common in natu-
rally-occurring spoken examples.

DISCUSSION
Despite the fact that well is one of the most frequently occurring words in
the spoken language and many of the 15 textbooks collected for the present
study claim to focus on oral skills, none of them devotes a separate section
or paragraph to the description of the particle, not to mention the discussion

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

of discourse particles as a collective group. Given the importance of well to
express various textual, interpersonal and interactional functions in talk
as supported by the corpus findings, such treatments seem to be less than
adequate. The analysis of well in the HKCSE and the textbooks above demon-
strates that noticeable differences exist in terms of the frequency of occurrence,
position and function of well between textbook data and naturally-occurring
speech. The vast difference in the discourse rates of well between textbook
presentations and discussions gives a strong feeling that the particle is virtually
nonexistent in presentations while ubiquitous in discussions. This, however,
is not substantiated by the corpus evidence in the present study. While most
of the instances of well found in the textbook sample section occur in utterance
initial position, corpus evidence suggests that the particle is also fairly common
in medial position. In addition, the functions of well as described and realized
in textbooks do not seem to be a close match with their functions in corpus
data. While it is understandable that minor pragmatic functions such as the
linking and emotive uses of well are omitted in textbooks, it remains unclear
why such a dominant function as framing is absent in presentations, a mono-
logic text type in which the organization and structuring of discourse are
essential. Furthermore, the responsive use of well appears to be over-stressed
in sample texts. This largely arises from the observation that expressing dis-
agreements appropriately in discussions is considered an important teaching
goal by the textbook writers and that well appears to be almost obligatory
in such examples. Although the responsive use of the particle is also typical
in corpus data, an over-emphasis on this particular function in textbooks could
possibly lead to an overuse of well in responses by students at the expense
of overlooking other important functions.
Of course, a mismatch between textbook data and corpus data does not
necessarily mean that such teaching materials are pedagogically inappropriate.
After all, authenticity is not the only, if ever a primary, criterion for text-
book design, not to mention the controversy surrounding the term ‘authentic’
(for the discussion of authenticity in language teaching and learning, see
Breen 1985; Cook 2001; Widdowson 2003). As admitted by Carter (1998),
‘real’ English could be more difficult to understand and produce. Therefore,
it may not always be pedagogically the most practical and effective, especially
if materials designed for beginners are concerned. Even if such is the case,
a corpus is only a glimpse of a given language variety at a restricted period
 P. W. Y. LAM 277

in time (McEnery and Wilson 1996) and there are aspects of language which
may not be fully unveiled by corpus evidence (Cook 1998). Yet for a crucial
pragmatic resource like discourse particles which are almost impossible to miss
in any contemporary spoken corpus, it is hard to justify why textbook writers
fail to give a more detailed and accurate description and presentation of how
they are used in real-life situations. Considering the fact that many of the
textbooks examined are specially designed for training English oral skills for
intermediate to advanced learners in Hong Kong in particular, such a mis-
match seems to be at odds with the aim of the oral examination that these

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

textbooks cater for, which is ‘to test the ability of candidates to understand
and use spoken English for practical communication as it might be encoun-
tered in academic or vocational situations’ (Hong Kong Examinations and
Assessment Authority 2005: 3). One might therefore, quite reasonably,
query whether such textbooks are so detached from reality that they have
ultimately lost their pedagogical value.
In recent years, it has been increasingly acknowledged that discourse parti-
cles are crucial for learners to communicate successfully at the pragmatic level
of interaction. If language learners are denied access to these critical pragmatic
devices in their learning process, they may not be able to fully project their
personality in the target language. As a result, although they may well be
capable of attaining transactional goals, they could only operate in the target
language with a ‘reduced’ personality (McCarthy 1998: 112). In other words,
learners are deprived of the right to behave and express themselves in the
same way as they do in their mother tongue. The image that they could pres-
ent in the second or foreign language is, at most, a partial alter ego. At worst,
the dearth of discourse particles in their talk could leave them ‘potentially
disempowered and at risk of becoming a second-class participant’ (O’Keeffe
et al. 2007: 39).
Given that discourse particles are crucial in achieving pragmatic competence
and that the descriptions and examples of discourse particles in the textbooks
examined are far from satisfactory, substantial revisions with the incorporation
of naturally-occurring examples are required in order to present a more com-
prehensive picture to students concerning how discourse particles are used.
In this connection, numerous practical suggestions concerning how language
corpora can be used to enhance teaching and learning activities have been
made. In order to make such corpus findings and applications more accessible
to the pedagogical setting, closer ties with the teaching profession can be
established through educational conferences and collaboration with schools.
O’Keeffe and Farr (2003) take a step forward and argue for the integration
of corpus linguistics into teacher education courses. Furthermore, corpus lin-
guists have taken an active role as materials writers to introduce corpus evi-
dence into coursebooks (see, for example, Carter et al. 2000, for the teaching
of discourse particles using authentic examples, and McCarthy et al. 2005a,b,
for a corpus-informed syllabus of conversational strategies). At the same time,
the availability of many mega-corpora in the public domain means that
278 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS

textbook writers now have at their disposal easy access to a large quantity of
naturally-occurring texts to confirm or refute their intuitions. Major publish-
ing houses even have their own in-house corpora on which teaching materials
can be based. In the cases where sizeable corpora from a specific EFL commu-
nity are not available to materials designers, corpus-based dictionaries and
grammars can be consulted (see, for example, Biber et al. 1999; Carter
and McCarthy 2006), with the careful supplement and comparison of data
and studies relevant to the local setting. Findings from the present study
which are generated from a large number of naturally-occurring examples

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

in a wide range of settings in Hong Kong, for example, provide an empirical
basis for the improvement of the descriptions of discourse particles in local
textbooks as well as in grammars and dictionaries of world Englishes. With
the increasing number of research outputs showing the fruitful results of data-
driven learning (DDL) (see, for example, Tribble and Jones 1990; Johns 1991),
it is high time to apply the methods of corpus linguistics to language teaching
and learning, especially in areas such as discourse particles, where invented
decontextualized examples could hardly elucidate to students the many dis-
course functions of these linguistic items in a variety of contextual situations.
In this respect, a corpus-based and data-driven approach to learning discourse
particles with the use of concordancers may be useful (see, for example Zorzi
2001, on the learning of Italian discourse markers and Möllering 2004, on the
teaching of German modal particles) and could probably provide the right
resources for learners, especially for intermediate to advanced learners,
to explore and research in a more learner-centred way how discourse particles
are actually used.

CONCLUSION
Through the unique examination of the particle well in an intercultural corpus
of spoken English in Hong Kong and its descriptions and presentations in
local textbooks, the present study has provided an example of how language
is taught and how language is actually used in the same community. Findings
from the present study have shown that wide discrepancies are found between
teaching materials and naturally-occurring examples in one of the most fre-
quently used discourse particles in the English language. This raises the issue
to what extent these textbooks examined reflect natural usage and hence
allow learners to be aware of how discourse particles are used. This article
argues that discourse particles are a valuable linguistic resource which learners
have a right to gain access to. Textbooks therefore should at least describe
and present them in the ways they are used in naturally-occurring examples
so that students can have a basic understanding of these items. Whether stu-
dents want to exploit this resource for productive use or only for reception
purposes is at their discretion (cf. Fung and Carter 2007), though they should
be given the choice all the same, especially for language learners at a more
advanced stage. When the issue of critical language awareness has become part
 P. W. Y. LAM 279

of the agenda for language learning, it is perhaps also appropriate to review

the place of discourse particles in language learning.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary material is available at Applied Linguistics online.

Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the editor of the journal and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable
comments on an earlier version of this article. The bulk of the work described in this article was
carried out at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and was substantially supported by grants
from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No.
B-Q714). I am deeply indebted to Prof. Winnie Cheng and Prof. Martin Warren for their generous
permission to let me use the Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English prior to its completion and
publication.

NOTES
1 In the literature, there is a lack of
a universally accepted term which
most people working in the field
give consent to. For detailed discus-
sions, see Brinton (1996) and Fischer
(2006).
2 For the sake of brevity, details of the
textbooks used in this study are given
in the supplementary appendix, which
is available in the online version of the
article.
3 Notes on transcription:
‘S1/S2:’ example in the HKCSE with
more than one speaker;
‘. . .’: an utterance reported only in
part;
‘’: the beginning of overlapping talk;
‘(.)’: an unfilled pause.

REFERENCES
Aijmer, K. 2002. English Discourse Particles:
Evidence from a Corpus. John Benjamins.
Aijmer, K. and A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen.
2003. ‘The discourse particle well and its
equivalents in Swedish and Dutch,’ Linguistics
41/6: 1123–61.
Bhatt, R. M. 2005. ‘Expert discourses, local
practices and hybridity: The case of Indian
Englishes’ in A. S. Canagarajah (ed.):
Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and
Practice. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad,
and E. Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of
Spoken and Written English. Longman.
Breen, M. 1985. ‘Authenticity in the language
classroom,’ Applied Linguistics 6: 60–70.
Brinton, L. J. 1996. Pragmatic Markers in English:
Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions.
Mouton de Gruyter.
Carlson, L. 1984. ‘Well’ in Dialogue Games:
A Discourse Analysis of the Interjection ‘Well’ in
Idealized Conversation. John Benjamins.
Carter, R. 1998. ‘Orders of reality: CANCODE,
communication, and culture,’ ELT Journal
52/1: 43–56.
Carter, R., R. Hughes, and M. McCarthy.
2000. Exploring Grammar in Context. Upper-inter-
mediate and Advanced. Cambridge University
Press.
Carter, R. and M. McCarthy. 2006. Cambridge
Grammar of English. Cambridge University
Press.
280 DISCOURSE PARTICLES IN CORPUS DATA AND TEXTBOOKS
Cheng, W., C. Greaves, and M. Warren. 2005.
‘The creation of prosodically transcribed inter-
cultural corpus: The Hong Kong Corpus of
Spoken English (prosodic),’ ICAME Journal
29: 5–26.
Cook, G. 1998. ‘The uses of reality: A reply to
Ronald Carter,’ ELT Journal 52/1: 57–63.
Cook, G. 2001. ‘The philosopher pulled the
lower jaw of the hen,’ Applied Linguistics 22/3:
366–87.
Davies, A. 2003. The Native Speaker: Myth and
Reality. Multilingual Matters.
Davies, A. 2004. ‘The native speaker in applied
linguistics’ in A. Davies and C. Elder (eds): The
Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Blackwell.
de Klerk, V. 2005. ‘Procedural meanings of well
in a corpus of Xhosa English,’ Journal of
Pragmatics 37: 1183–205.
Erman, B. 1987. Pragmatic Expressions in English:
A Study of You Know, You See and I Mean
in Face-to-face Conversation. Almqvist & Wiksell.
Esser, D. 1999. Teach & Practice: AS-level Oral
English for Form 6. Pilot Publications.
Fischer, K. 2006. ‘Towards an understanding of
the spectrum of approaches to discourse parti-
cles: Introduction to the volume’ in K. Fischer
(ed.): Approaches to Discourse Particles. Elsevier.
Fraser, B. 1990. ‘An approach to discourse
markers,’ Journal of Pragmatics 14: 383–95.
Fung, L. and R. Carter. 2007. ‘Discourse mar-
kers and spoken English: Native and learner
use in pedagogic settings,’ Applied Linguistics
28/3: 410–39.
Gilmore, A. 2004. ‘A comparison of textbook
and authentic interactions,’ ELT Journal 58/4:
363–74.
Graddol, D. 1997. The Future of English? British
Council.
Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. British Council.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1985. An Introduction to
Functional Grammar. Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan. 1976.
Cohesion in English. Longman.
Holmes, J. 1984. ‘Hedging your bets and
sitting on the fence: Some evidence
for hedges as support structures,’ Te Reo 27:
47–62.
Holmes, J. 1988. ‘Doubt and certainty in ESL
textbooks,’ Applied Linguistics 9/1: 21–44.
Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment
Authority. 2005. Syllabuses for the Use
of English. Advanced Supplementary Level.
Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment
Authority.
Johns, T. 1991. ‘Should you be persuaded – two
samples of data driven learning materials,’
English Language Research Journal 4: 1–16.
Jucker, A. H. and Y. Ziv. 1998. ‘Discourse mar-
kets: Introduction’ in A. H. Jucker and Y. Ziv
(eds): Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory.
John Benjamins.
Kachru, B. 1996. ‘English as lingua franca’
Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010
in H. Goebl, P. Nelde, Z. Zary, and W. Wölck
(eds): Kontaktlinguistik. Contact Linguistics.
Linguistique de Contact. Vol. 1. Mouton de
Gryuter.
Koprowski, M. 2005. ‘Investigating the useful-
ness of lexical phrases in contemporary course-
books,’ ELT Journal 59/4: 322–32.
Kramsch, C. 1988. ‘The cultural discourse of
foreign language textbooks’ in A. Singerman
(ed.): Toward a New Integration of Language
and Culture. Northeast Conference Reports
1988. Northeast Conference.
Lakoff, R. 1973. ‘Questionable answers and
answerable questions’ in B. B. Kachru,
R. B. Lees, Y. Malkiel, A. Pietrangeli, and
S. Saporta (eds): Issues in Linguistics. Papers in
Honor of Henry and Rene Kahane. University of
Illinois Press.
Lam, P. W. Y. 2006. ‘Well but that’s the effect of it:
The use of well as a discourse particle in talk
shows,’ Sprache und Datenverarbeitung
(International Journal for Language Data
Processing) 30/1: 99–108.
Lam, P. W. Y. 2008. Discourse Particles in an
Intercultural Corpus of English. Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation. The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University.
Leech, G. and J. Svartvik. 2002. A
Communicative Grammar of English. Longman.
Leetch, P. 2002. Use of English Oral Handbook.
Free Press.
McCarthy, M. 1998. Spoken Language and Applied
Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M., J. McCarten, and
H. Sandiford. 2005a. Touchstone. Student’s
Book 1. Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M., J. McCarten, and
H. Sandiford. 2005b. Touchstone. Student’s
Book 2. Cambridge University Press.
McEnery, T. and A. Wilson. 1996. Corpus
Linguistics. Edinburgh University Press.

Mindt, D. 1997. ‘Corpora and the teaching of
English in Germany’ in A. Wichmann,
S. Filgelstone, G. Knowles, and A. McEnery
(eds): Teaching and Language Corpora. Longman.
Möllering, M. 2004. The Acquisition of German
Modal Particles. A Corpus-based Approach. Peter
Lang.
Müller, S. 2004. ‘Well you know that type of person:
Functions of well in the speech of American
and German students,’ Journal of Pragmatics
36: 1157–82.
Müller, S. 2005. Discourse Markers in Native and
Non-native English Discourse. John Benjamins.
Nelson, M. 2000. A Corpus-based Study of the Lexis
of Business English and Business English Teaching
Materials. Unpublished thesis. University of
Manchester.
O’Keeffe, A. and F. Farr. 2003. ‘Using language
corpora in initial teacher education: Pedagogic
issues and practical applications,’ TESOL
Quarterly 37/3: 389–418.
O’Keeffe, A., M. McCarthy, and R. Carter.
2007. From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use
and Language Teaching. Cambridge University
Press.
Olson, D. R. 1980. ‘On the language and
authority of textbooks,’ Journal of
Communication 30: 186–96.
Pennycook, A. 1998. English and the Discourses of
Colonialism. Routledge.
Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism.
Oxford University Press.
Potter, J. 2003a. Steps & Skills Oral 6. Witman.
Potter, J. 2003b. Steps & Skills Oral 7. Witman.
Prodromou, L. 2003. ‘In search of the successful
user of English,’ Modern English Teacher 12/2:
5–14.
Quirk, R. 1955. ‘Colloquial English and commu-
nication’ in A. J. Ayer, C. Cherry, B. Ifor
Evans, D. B. Fry, J. B. S. Haldene, R. Quirk,
G. Vickers, T. B. L. Webster, R. Wittkower, and
J. Z. Young (eds): Studies in Communication.
Secker and Warburg.
Reynolds, P. 1974. English Language Teaching and
Textbooks in Hong Kong. Educational Studies
and Research Papers No. 3. Department of
Education Research Unit, The University of
Hong Kong.
P. W. Y. LAM 281
Romero Trillo, J. 2002. ‘The pragmatic fossiliza-
tion of discourse markers in non-native speak-
ers of English,’ Journal of Pragmatics 34:
769–84.
Schiffrin, D. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge
University Press.
Schourup, L. 1999. ‘Tutorial overview:
Discourse markers,’ Lingua 107: 227–65.
Schourup, L. 2001. ‘Rethinking well,’ Journal of
Pragmatics 33: 1025–60.
Downloaded from applij.oxfordjournals.org at Islamic Azad University on September 3, 2010
Seidlhofer, B. 2002. ‘Basic questions’
in K. Knapp and C. Meierkord (eds): Lingua
Franca Communication. Peter Lang.
Sinclair, J. and M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards an
Analysis of Discourse. Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. and A. Mauranen. 2006. Linear Unit
Grammar: Integrating Speech and Writing. John
Benjamins.
Stenström, A.-B. 1990. ‘Lexical items peculiar
to spoken discourse’ in J. Svartvik (ed.): The
London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English:
Description and Research. Lund University Press.
Stenström, A.-B. 1994. An Introduction to Spoken
Interaction. Longman.
Sutton, M. E. and J. Duncan. 1999. Speaking
Precisely 1. Precise Publications.
Tribble, C. and W. Jones. 1990. Concordances in
the Classroom: A Resource Book for Teachers.
Longman.
Watts, R. J. 1988. ‘A relevance-theoretic
approach to commentary pragmatic markers:
The case of actually, really and basically,’ Acta
Linguistica Hungarica 38: 235–60.
Widdowson, H. 2003. Defining Issues in English
Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1991. Cross-cultural Pragmatics.
The Semantics of Human Interaction. Mouton de
Gruyter.
Wong, J. 2002. ‘ ‘‘Applying’’ conversation analy-
sis in applied linguistics: Evaluating dialogue in
English as a second language textbooks,’ IRAL
40/1: 37–60.
Zorzi, D. 2001. ‘The pedagogic use of spoken
corpora: Learning discourse markers in
Italian’ in G. Aston (ed.): Learning with
Corpora. Athelstan.