PASAA
Volume 55
January - June 2018

Macro Discourse Markers in TED Talks:
How Ideas are Signaled to Listeners

Kanokrat Uicheng
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
E-mail: kanokrat.uc@gmail.com
Michael Crabtree
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
E-mail: crabtree@chula.ac.th

Abstract
This study investigated the macro discourse
markers used by TED speakers to signal ideas tolisteners. 150 TED transcripts from six talk genres:
technology, entertainment, design, business, science,and global issues were compiled to identify thefrequency

and distributionof macrodiscourse

markers. This investigation was conducted to confirm
the hypothesis that genres of talks did not affect the
distribution of discourse markers. The study also
hypothesized that a number of macro discourse
markers which explicitly containing the word ‘idea’ or‘ideas’ in them could be found. The results confirmedthat the occurrences of macro discourse markers were2 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

not subject to talk genres and that 51 markers
containing the word ‘idea’ and ‘ideas’ were found.
Keywords: discourse marker, macro discourse marker,
idea signalers corpus-based study, public talk, talkgenresIntroduction
When listening to a public speech, one may notice that therearefactors

contributing

to

or

even

preventing

us

from

understanding the message that the speaker is trying to deliver.
Sometimes it is the speed or pace of speaking which might be too
fast to follow. Sometimes it is the complexity of concept which is notclearly explained by the speaker. As a result, most listeners need tocount on linguistic devices like discourse markers to help themcomprehend the speech better. While some discourse markers workas pause fillers, others work as sequence, fact, or idea signalers.
Several studies agree that discourse markers help listeners
to understand academic spoken discourse like lectures, more easily(Chaudron & Richard, 1986; Flowerdew & Tauroza, 1995; Rido,2015). However, only a small number of studies have investigatedspecifically how speakers use discourse markers to aid a successful
talk. This is possibly because most researchers have not identified
a group of speakers who represent a successful model that they canstudy for the way discourse markers are used. This study, however,argues that TED Talk speakers represent such a model and that
one can learn from them the role that discourse markers play intheir proficiency as public speakers.
TED is a non-profit organization which offers short powerfultalks on various topics to audiences around the world. People caneither attend their live conferences or watch TED talk videos online.
The topics of TED talks vary, although most can be grouped under
one or more of the following: technology, entertainment, design,business, science, and global issues. There are approximately 2,700
talks available on the internet and their popularity has been
increasing. One talk by Sir Ken Robinson about education andPASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 3

creativity, for example, has been viewed more than 50 million times
and has been translated into more than 60 languages. TED
speakers have also been recognized in a number of studies, whichhave attempted to identify features of TED talks which distinguishthem from other types of spoken discourse.
For instance, Caliendo and Compagnone (2014), who defined
TED Talks as speech events where speakers from different fields
share their knowledge with a large audience, compared TED Talk
speakers to university lecturers in their use of ELVs, or epistemic
lexical verbs. The four most recurrent ELVs: see, show, know, think,were investigated using two corpora of spoken discourse: TED_ac
and MICASE. The results showed that unlike in lectures, thepronoun ‘we’ as used in TED talks, typically included the speakers
and their team but excluded the audience. Their use of ‘we’, as in
we see, we know, and we think, helped TED speakers build an
image of themselves as experts who delivered their stories ordiscoveries confidently. This particular use of epistemic lexicalverbs with the pronoun ‘we’ was identified as one element that
distinguishes TED Talk speakers from university lecturers.
Tsai (2015) also compared TED speakers with university
professors, but in terms of prosodic voice characteristics. His main
aim was to identify the characteristics that distinguished TED
speakers from other public speakers. He collected 5-minute audio
samples

from

TED

talks

and lectures,

thendevelopedadiscriminative classifier to predict whether the samples were from
TED talks or from lectures. Predictions were based on a set offeatures derived from pitch and energy. It was found that TED talks
tended to be more ‘dense’ in that there was less time in silence andmore time in high-energy speech. TED speakers were also
consistent in delivering lengthy messages while lecturers were
found to have more varied chunks of silence and speech. The study
also suggested that TED speakers had deeper voices than university
professors. Tsai pointed out that these results were possibly due tothe fact that TED talks were shorter than the lectures. Furthermore,
he suggested that one element that made TED Talk speakers
successful public speakers is their ability to deliver a consistently

4 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018high-energy talk. In Tsai’s opinion, TED talk speakers ‘havesomething to say and know how to say it’ (p.4).
Chris Anderson, the Head of TED Talk, however, views TED
speakers from another perspective. He believes that all TED
speakers have one element in common. That element is their ‘idea’
which they see as worth sharing with the audience. Despite the factthat TED speakers talk on different topics, they have the same goal,
which is to successfully deliver their ideas to the listeners. This,
Anderson suggests, is the key common feature shared by TED
speakers.
Given the time limitation of approximately 20 minutes andthe large audience from different backgrounds, TED speakers need
to be clear when they deliver their ‘ideas’. They must ensure that
all listeners are with them and do not miss any important concepts
during the talk. This is where discourse markers are believed to playa role. A discourse marker is a linguistic feature that helps indicate
relations between utterances in the discourse. With ideas as
elements to deliver, it is assumed that TED speakers use discourse
markers to signal their thoughts. This study aims to identify suchdiscourse markers used by TED speakers, especially what
Chaudron and Richards (1986) term the macro version, such as ‘I
believe’ and ‘the point is’.
Review of the Literature
Discourse Markers: Terminology and Definitions
The markers which are the focus of this study are macro
discourse markers. However, when researchers use the term
‘discourse marker’ in general and more specifically, the term ‘macro
discourse marker’, they do not always use them to refer to exactly
the same elements.
For example, Chaudron and Richards (1986) proposed that
there are four versions of lecture discourse where the use of
discourse markers could be found: 1) baseline version, 2) microversion, 3) macro version, and 4) micro-macro version. The term‘version’ here, as the researcher understands it, refers to the type oflecture, considering this explanation by Chaudron and Richards:

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 5

A second version of the lecture, the ‘Micro’ version, was thenconstructed, in which various markers of 1ntersentential relations,framing of segments, and pause fillers, were inserted.
Chaudron and Richards (1986:71)

From this excerpt, it is clear that the term ‘version’ refers toa type of lecture. The term ‘markers’ being used here also refers to‘discourse marker’, as the title of the paper, The Effect of Discourse
Markers on the Comprehension of Lecture, suggests. Chaudron andRichards divided lectures into four types and identified discourse
markers found in each type of lecture. Below are examples of the
discourse markers found in four different lecture versions.
The first version of lecture is called the baseline version.
Chaudron and Richards claim that there are no markers needed forthe baseline version of lecture. All of what appears in the discourse
is necessary to convey the meaning. For example, every word in thissentence, By 1803, the original 13 colonies had doubled in size… as
exemplified by Chaudron and Richard, is semantically required.
The second type of lecture discourse is called the microversion. Markers in this version signal intersentential relations,frame segments, and fill pauses. They can be divided into 5 subcategories: which are temporal link, causal link, contrastive
relationship, relative emphasis, and framing or segmentation.
Following are examples of markers in each type as suggested by
Chaudron and Richards.
Temporal link: then, and, now, after this, at that time
Causal link: because, so
Contrastive relationship: but, actually
Relative emphasis: you see, unbelievably, of course
Framing / segmentation: well, ok, alright?

The third type is called the macro version. Markers in thislecture type can be signalers or metastatements that indicate major
propositions or important transition points in the lecture. Examplesof these markers are:

6 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

To

begin

with,

what

we've

come

to

by

now

was

that,

let’s go back to the beginning, What I’m going to talk about today
That/this is why As you may have heard

The last type is called the micro-macro version. The namesuggests that this is a combination between the micro version
lecture and macro version lecture. The markers from both types areused together as in these examples provided by Chaudron andRichards.
Well, to begin with,And so, what we’ve come to by now was that,

However, similar to other researchers (Morell 2000, Bellés
2004, Rido 2010) who called the discourse markers in Chaudron
and Richards’ study ‘Micro markers’ and ‘Macro markers’ after thenames of the lecture types, this present study calls the markers inmicro version and macro version lectures ‘micro discourse markers’
and ‘macro discourse markers’, respectively.
Unlike Chaudron and Richards who examined markers in
the discourse of lectures, Schiffrin (1987) studied the use anddistribution of markers in everyday discourse. She defined
discourse markers as ‘sequentially dependent elements that bracket
units of talk’ (p.57). Markers as defined by Schiffrin are nonobligatory and syntactically detachable. They usually occur as
utterance initials that correlate with ongoing talk and text. These
discourse markers appear in several word classes, such as,
conjunctions, interjections, adverbs, and lexicalized phrases.
Following are Schiffrin’s examples of discourse markers from eachclass.
Conjunctions: and, but, orInterjections: Oh
Adverbs: now, then
Lexicalized phrases: y’know, I mean

Without looking at any particular types of discourse, Fraser(1996), classified ‘discourse markers’ as a type of pragmatic marker.

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 7

In his definition, a discourse marker refers to an expression thatsignals the relationship between a basic message and the foregoing
discourse. This marker does not influence the representative
sentence meaning, but only helps to mark the procedural meaning,as in this example: Mary went home. After all, she was sick. This
marker ‘After all’ does not change the representative meanings ofthe two sentences. It only signals to the readers that there is arelationship between these two incidents: Mary went home and She
was sick. This marker ‘after all’, as well as items such as thus,
moreover, however, and in other words are Fraser’s examples of
discourse markers.
Another researcher who studied discourse markers in lecture
discourse is Morell (2000). She investigated the role of discourse
markers in two types of lectures: interactive and non-interactive.
Morell adopted Chaudron and Richards (1986)’s classification of
micro and macro markers but made some addition to the subcategory of micro markers. Following are examples of discourse
markers from her classification.
Non-interactive Micro-markers
Segmentation
Ok, and, or,now, wellTemporal
And then,after that

CausalSo, thatmeans,
whichmeans,
because,so (that),
therefore

Contrast
But,
althoughEmphasis
In fact, ofcourse,such as,note

Elicitation
Ready?

Contrast
But, unlessEmphasis
Of course,
as youknow

Elicitation
Anything
else?
What?
Why not?
LouderpleaseInteractive Micro-markers
Segmentation
Ok, and, or,now, anyway

Temporal
Then

CausalSo

8 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

Non-interactive Macro-markers
StarterToday I’m
going totalkabout…
To
begin…
The
reasons…

Elicitation
What do wemean by…
Remember…
Anyquestions...

Accept-Attitudinal
I would
dare tosay...
I believe
that…
I wouldn’t
doubt it.

Metastatement
I have a quote
for you…
I’d like to readthis to you…

Conclusion
What youhave seenin thislecturefirst was…

Attitudinal
I think…
It’s adifficultquestion toanswer.

Metastatement
To back upthat statement

Conclusion
To finish
today’s
lecture,We’llcontinuewith thistomorrow

Interactive Macro-markers
Starter
We aregoing togetstartedCan I
have yourattention?
We willbegin now

Elicitation
I have aquestionfor you.
Do youthink…?
Do youagree…?

AcceptThat’sright.
That’

A more recent definition of discourse marker is that proposedby Carter and McCarthy (2006). Similar to Fraser (1996), Carter and
McCarthy defined ‘discourse marker’ as a sub-type of pragmatic
marker. The two researchers divided pragmatic markers into 1)
discourse markers, 2) stance markers, 3) hedges, and 4)
interjections. The discourse markers in Carter and McCarthy’s
schema include expressions like so, well, and anyway.
It can be seen from all the definitions above that researchers
have approached discourse markers differently. Some specified
discourse markers in particular types of discourse such as lectures,
while others defined ‘discourse marker’ in more general term.
Moreover, since their definitions of discourse markers differ, thefunctions of markers are not the same. Discourse markers as
defined by Chaudron and Richards, for example, can perform
various functions from linking, signaling relationships, signalingtransition points, or filling pauses, while in Fraser, the function ofmost discourse markers is to mark the procedural meaning. It isnecessary to consider both discourse types and functions when one
would like to adopt a particular definition of discourse markers intheir study.

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 9

Discourse Markers in this Study
This study finds the classification of discourse markers
proposed by Chaudron and Richards best fits its purposes. While
Schiffrin focuses on discourse markers in everyday discourse,which may include conversations and written texts, Chaudron andRichard focus only on lectures. TED talks may be considered assimilar to lectures in that both are delivered by a speaker who talks
in a highly monologic manner, in academic spoken discourse, andin front of a large audience. It is assumed, therefore, that theclassification of discourse markers in lectures is applicable to theclassification of discourse markers occurring in TED presentations,although the distinction between markers found in the two
discourses might be a topic for later investigation.
While the present study adopts the taxonomy of discourse
markers posited by Chaudron and Richard, it also uses the list of
markers in Morell as a guideline for the manual investigation of
discourse markers in the first part of the data collection. However,this study does not intend to explore discourse markers of any
functions. Rather, it aims to look particularly for markers that TED
speakers use to signal ideas, and therefore macro discourse
markers seem most relevant. Another reason for choosing macro
discourse markers is that a large number of previous studies
investigated the use of micro discourse markers (e.g. well, really,
you know?) while relatively few have investigated macro discourse
markers. Most macro DMs are, therefore, still unexplored. This
study aims to fill this gap by studying the use of macro discourse
markers in the spoken discourse of TED talks, especially whenthose markers signal ideas to the listeners.
Previous Studies
Discourse markers have been the subject of investigation innumerous studies and in a variety of languages (Roggia 2012,
Landone

2012,

Rhee

2013,

Tanghe2015).

Some

studiesinvestigated the use of markers in written discourse (Zhang 2000,
DÜlger 2007, Jalilifa 2008, Rezanova & Kogut 2015,) but in others,

10 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

including the present study, the focus has been on discourse
markers used in spoken discourse.
Studies that Investigated Discourse Markers in Spoken
Discourse
Lee-Goldman (2010) studied different senses of ‘no’ via two
speech corpora: the ICSI Meeting corpus and the Fisher English
Training Corpus. He found that, in addition to the normal sense of‘no’ as negation or rejection, there are three more senses of ‘no’ as
discourse markers. ‘No’ as a discourse marker involves: 1) topic
shifting, 2) misunderstanding mitigation, and 3) turn-taking
management. Following is an example of ‘no’ used as a discourse
marker to shift from a joke and then return to the conversation.
1 B: i did and i started thinking about it and i contributed
2 it all to my mother3 [ha ha it’s all on her side of the family] ha ha ha ha
4 A: [ha ha ha ha ha ]5 A: maternal heart attack
6 B: yes
7 A: ((laugh))
8 B: yes
9 B: i blame her
10 B: ->> but no um
11 B: --> so that’s how i kind of got involved cause i like doing this
12 B: stuff you know and uh
13 B: it’s interesting and you know and i enjoy talking to other 14 people
and…
Lee-Goldman (2010: 9)

By providing evidence of ‘no’ functioning as a discourse
marker, Lee-Goldman also pointed out that ‘no’ does not always
occur alone but can be accompanied by another discourse marker,
such as ‘but’ as in the excerpt above.
In a later study, Tay (2011) examined the co-occurrences of
discourse

markersandmetaphoricutterancesin

Englishpsychotherapeutic talks. He analyzed two extracts obtained fromthe Counselling and Psychotherapy Transcripts published online byAlexander Street Press. In the first extract, Tay investigated thepatient’s use of discourse markers which were followed bymetaphoric utterances. He discovered that the patient repeatedly

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 11

used the discourse markers, ‘I mean’ and ‘you know’ (or you knowwhat) to discuss a situation to which the therapist could relate. In
the second extract, Tay investigated the discourse markers used by
the therapist to explain an abstract concept to the patient. He foundthat the therapist also used the discourse markers ‘you know’,‘and’, and ‘right?’ frequently with the patient. These three markers
preceded metaphoric utterances as can be noticed below in this partof the excerpt.
“If you have this huge – you know, it’s kind of like even an
example – and we have to begin wrapping up. But like -you know,
like a person – the people who have to disbomb bombs? You know
– I forget what they call them, but if a building even called, thebomb squad comes in, right?”

Tay then concluded that metaphors and discourse markers
are co-occurring features found in psychotherapeutic talks. The useof discourse markers, both by patient and the therapist, wasmotivated by the metaphoric expressions that followed.
In response to a perceived lack of research into discourse
markers in languages other than English, Lai and Lin (2012)
designed a study that looked specifically into the use of Chinese
discourse markers by Chinese-speaking seniors in descriptive andnarrative

discourses.

ThirtyChinese-speaking

seniorswith

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and another thirty seniors without AD
participated in this study. The findings revealed that both groups ofparticipants used more discourse markers in the narrative task
than in the descriptive task. However, the group with AD used thediscourse markers with less frequency and variation. The discourse
markers frequently used by the participants with AD were, forexample, 应该 (should), 好像 (seem), and 大概 (probably).
Studies that Specifically Investigated Macro Discourse
Markers
Bellés (2004) investigated the similarities and differences of
discourse markers used in American and British lectures in theSocial Sciences. She compiled a corpus which comprised twenty

12 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018transcripts, ten American English lecture transcripts from the
University of Michigan and ten British English lecture transcripts
from the University of Birmingham.

The result of her corpus

investigation showed that there were similarities in the use of
macro-markers between American and British English lectures.
Both tended to use the same macro-markers, especially in thesefollowing types: metastatements, attitudinal, and starter. However,
Bellés found a distinction between the use of two metastatement
macro-markers: Let me (lemme) and let’s. American lecturers used
these two markers more frequently, especially Let me or lemme,
which did not occur in the British lectures at all. This finding
implied, as suggested by Bellés, that American lecture discourse
uses less formal speech features than British lecture discourse.
Rido (2015) investigated the use of discourse markers inscience lectures by a professor of physics in a university in
Malaysia. The investigation was done by observing and recording
two of her lecture sections to identify discourse markers usedduring the lessons. Two types of discourse markers were found. The
first type was macro markers which functioned as rephrasers andtopic shifters. To rephrase what had been said, the lecturer in thisstudy used that mean, I mean, and which means to say that. She
was also found using ‘so’, ‘now’, and ‘so anyway’ as topic shifters.
The second type of marker was the micro marker. Rido identified
two sub-types of markers in this group: additional makers andcausal markers. Both were used to signal internal or ideational
relations within the sentences. The additional markers found were‘and’ and ‘or’ while the causal marker found was ‘because’. Rido
believes that the use of these discourse markers can help thestudents to comprehend the lectures.
The

abovementioned

studies

providean

overviewof

discourse markers which have been investigated in different
contexts and different types of discourse. One of the most frequently
examined types of discourse among researchers is the lecture.
However, the discourse markers examined in most studies on
lectures were often one of these: so, well, right, now, really, I mean,
and you know. This present study seeks to identify a wider range of

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 13

discourse markers, especially the macro version, which TED
speakers use to efficiently deliver ideas. Specifically, the study
attempts to answer the following research questions:
Research Questions
1. What are the macro-discourse markers used to signal ideas
in TED Talk presentations?
2. Are the macro discourse markers found in TED talks specificto the topics of the talks, or are they equally distributed
across different genres?
The hypotheses which the study sets out to test are:Hypotheses
1. There will be a wide range of macro discourse markers used
to signal ideas in TED Talk presentations.
2. Many macro-discourse markers contain the word ‘idea’ or‘ideas’.
3. There are no significant differences between the distributionsof macro-discourse markers across TED Talk genres.
Research Methodology
Corpora and Data Collection
The data in this study came from two corpora. One corpus(hereinafter TED-dm) is a compilation of 150 TED talk transcripts,
25 each from six popular topics: technology, entertainment, design,business, science, and global issues. This corpus is used to confirm
the occurrences and frequency of macro discourse markers foundin each type of talk. Another corpus is called TCSE, or the TED
Corpus Search Engine, developed by Yoichiro Hasebe from Japan.
This corpus has a large database of 2,589 TED talk transcripts withover 6,245,134 elements. The number of transcripts in this corpus
is close to the number of talks available on the official TED site(around 2,700+ videos). For this reason, the corpus is considered
as having data representative of TED talks generally and therefore
is used in this study as a reference corpus.

14 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

Data Preparation
In order to compile the TED-dm, 25 transcripts from each ofsix talk genres were specified. This was done by using the browsing
tools of the official TED site. The duration of talks was set for 12 to
18 minutes and the topics selected were from the six most popular
genres. Once the duration and topics were set (Ex. Technology, 1218 minutes), TED displayed a long list of videos starting from thepresent year (2018) to the first year in which TED talks were given(2006). Initially, the researcher intended to select the 25 mostcurrent videos from each genre list. However, this proved
problematic as some videos appeared under more than one topic
and therefore, it was not clear to which topic such videos should be
assigned. For example, the talk ‘What is it like to be a robot’ given
by Leila Takayama, appeared under both technology and design. If
this talk were assigned to either genre, we would not be able togeneralize the distribution of macro discourse markers in these twodifferent genres. Hence, any videos appearing with more than oneof these six topics tags: technology, entertainment, design,business, science, and global issues, were not included in the
study. Only the videos with a single tag from these categories wereselected, despite the different year in which they were given.
Data Analysis
After all 25 transcripts from talks on the six topics were
specified and collected, the two most recent transcripts from each
topic were manually analyzed to identify the macro-discourse
markers. Within one transcript, a speaker can use several macro
discourse makers, but this study only looked for markers that
introduced, expressed, or signaled ideas. For example, in the two
excerpts below, the marker ‘But I want to be clear’ was chosen forthe study while the marker ‘let me give you an example’ was not,because the latter told ‘information’ rather than signaled an ‘idea’.
“But I want to be clear: postpartum hemorrhaging – it’s not a
Rwanda problem, it’s not a developing-world problem – this is a global
problem.”
Keller Rinaudo, 2017

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 15

“Let me give you an example. A couple months ago, a 24year-old mother came into one of the hospitals that we serve, andshe gave birth via C-section. But that led to complications, and she
started to bleed.”
Keller Rinaudo, 2017

Following are the macro-discourse markers found in the twotranscripts taken from each talk genre by manual investigation.
Technology

I think / if you want to / one thing that / the reason is / But
I want to be clear / So picture that for a moment

Entertainment

I want you to picture this / I start to wonder / it turns out /I learned that / what if / I mean / And remember this.

DesignI believe / I’d like for you to just think about / Here’s the thing

Business

So, three things that I have learned / I learned that / So I
realized that / I’ve also discovered that / This is because /That’s because / But my point is that

Science

The reason that…is / So the first thing that we discovered /you’ll notice / that’s why / Imagine if / what if / So in thiscase / Try to think about / So now we know that / So suppose
now / But the question is / But the reason why … is / wediscovered that / so as you can imagine / If you think about

Global Issues

I’m going to focus on / We realized / Here’s what I’ve learned

To ensure that these markers are in fact signaling ideas, one
native speaker of English was asked to read the concordance lines
in which these markers occurred and see whether he agreed withthe list. Once the list was confirmed, the corpus TED-dm was used
to identify the occurrences and frequency of these discourse
markers, genre by genre.
One can notice, however, that some of the macro-discourse
markers in the list above co-occurred with micro markers in frontof them, such as, and remember this, but my point is that, and so I
realized that. These micro markers are considered part of the macro16 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

markers’ variations and therefore were not included when searching
the corpus. The complimentizer ‘that’ and possessive pronouns like‘my’ were likewise excluded due to the fact that they too, were
optional and subjective to the speakers. The example below
illustrates when the marker ‘but my point is’ was investigated in the
TED-dm topic-specific sub-corpora.

Figure 1: The result when searching ‘point is’ from the Technology subcorpus of TED-dm using Antconc program

The result shows that from the 25 TED transcripts under the
topic ‘technology’, there were three occurrences of the marker ‘The
point is’, one with the micro marker ‘so’ and two without it. The next
step in the analysis was then to read each concordance line and see
if the marker really introduced or signaled an idea. The frequency
of instances where the markers introduced ideas was counted. This
process was applied to every marker in the list and with every TEDdm sub-corpus ranging from technology to entertainment, design,business, science, and global issues. The TCSE corpus was also
used to confirm the frequency of each marker in TED talks ingeneral. This step marked the end of the first part of data collection.

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 17

In the second part, data collection no longer investigated thediscourse markers mentioned above. As the study hypothesizedthat macro-discourse markers specifically containing the word‘idea’ or ‘ideas’ must also occur, each TED-dm sub-corpus was
searched using these two keywords. Once again, there wereconcordance lines to analyze and those with macro discourse
markers signaling ideas were counted. For example, the data below
shows instances with the word ‘idea’ in them but only numbers 12,
22, 26, and 29 were counted. This step in the investigation marked
the end of all data collection.

Figure 2: The result when searching the keyword ‘idea’ from the Business subcorpus of TED-dm using Antconc program18 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

Findings and Discussion
Range of Macro Discourse Markers
The data from the study confirmed the first hypothesis whichassumed that there is a wide range of macro discourse markers
used by TED speakers to signal ideas. The first part of datacollection found 31 macro discourse markers in 12 TED transcripts
while the second part of the data collection discovered another 51
macro discourse markers containing the word ‘idea’ or ‘ideas’. The
number of macro discourse markers identified in this study, then,was 82 in total.
When looking closely at all 31 macro discourse markers,
some recurrent patterns can be found as illustrated in the tablebelow.
Subject +Verb
I thinkI realized
I learned
I meanI believe
I start towonderI discovered
I’ve learned
We knowWe
discovered
We realized

Verb
Remember,Imagine (if,
that)
Think
about it.
Suppose(now, that)
Picture(that0If Hypotheses
If you want
to…
What if…
If you think
about…

Noun + Verb tobe
The reason is

Otherconstructions
One thing

The point is

Here’s the thing

The question isThis is because
That is because
I want to beclear
I want you tothink
I want to focus
It turned out
You’ll notice

Table 1: Common patterns of 31 macro discourse markers found in the first partof data collection

Some epistemic lexical verbs (ELVs) found frequently in the
TED_ac corpus of Caliendo and Compagnone (2014) occurred inthis data as well. Those ELVs are, for example, think, know, believe,
imagine, notice, and suppose. In their study, Caliendo andCompagnone investigated the co-occurrences of these verbs withthe pronoun ‘You’, ‘I’ and ‘We’ and then retrieved lists of possible

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 19

clusters in which these ELVs occurred.

This study, however,selected only clusters that function as discourse markers.
Examples of such clusters are: I think, I believe, we know, and you’ll
notice.
However, two of their most frequent ELVs: see and show,
were missing from this study. This is possibly because the two
verbs, when used as discourse markers, tend to deliver information
rather than ideas. For example;“I want to show you some brave souls who've had the courage to embrace
this advanced potty-training approach.”Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a Life Calendar.
As you can see, the system is very complex and vast. And what you see
here in this methylation mapping, a dramatic separation at birth of theanimals that had a high social status versus the animals that did not havea high status.

These four examples support the idea that the macro
discourse markers in which the verbs ‘show’ and ‘see’ occurred,
normally deliver information rather than ideas to the listeners.
Nevertheless, this is not to imply that the epistemic lexical verbs
found in discourse markers in this study always signal ideas. Somemarkers have more than one function and they too can signal
information as well as ideas. They will be discussed further in alater part of the study.
Macro Discourse Markers Across Genres of Talks
Once the list of 31 macro discourse markers had beenobtained, the TED-dm sub-corpora were investigated to examine
the distribution of markers across genres of talks. The results wereas follows:DesignBusiness

Science

Global Issues

Total

Macro Discourse Markers

Entertainment

No

Technology

20 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

51/59
3/3

24/27
7/7

38/44
4/4

35/39
2/2

228
24

2/2

1/2

1/1

1/1

8

4/4

3/3

2/3

4/4

28

-

1/1

-

-

3

-

-

-

-

3

-

1/1

-

-

2

2/2
11/11
1/5
1/2

1/9
1/1
5/5
4/12
1/3

6/10
2/2
15/17
4/13
1/3

1/2
2/2
1/1
3/3
4/6

17
6
60
28
10

3/3
-

12/12
1/1

7/7
-

3/3
2/2

17/17
-

53
3

2/2

1/1

-

1/1

1/2

5

-

1/1

2/2

1/1

1/1

5

8/14
3/3

1/1
0/1

4/8
3/3

2/8
-

1/8
0/1

17
7

1/1
-

1/3
1/1
-

1/1
4/4
4/4

0/1
1/3
2/2

1/1
0/1
2/2

3
7
10

-

-

-

1/2

2/4

3

-

0/1

1/1

1/3

0/1

2

Macro DMs from 2 Technology Transcripts
1
2

I think (that)
51/57 29/32
If you want to
7/7
1/1
If you wanted to3
one thing (that)
1/1
2/2
There’s one thing4(And) the reason is (that)
10/11
5/5
the reason… is (that)the reason… is this.
5(But) I want to be clear
1/1
1/1
Now to be clear
6(So) picture that for a
1/1
1/1
moment I want you to
pictureMacro DMs from 2 Entertainment transcripts
7
I start to wonder
1/1
I started to wonder8
It turns out
5/11
2/3
9
I learned that
1/1
10 What if
19/19
9/9
11 I mean
3/10
13/23
And remember this
1/1
2/3
12 (But) remember…
Macro DMs from 2 Design transcripts
13 I believe (that)
11/11
14 I’d like you to think
I want you to think
15 Here’s the thing
Macro DMs from 2 Business transcripts
16 I have learned
0/2
Here’s what I have learned
17 I realized (that)
1/1
18 I’ve discovered (that)
1/1
I discovered (that)
What I discovered is that
19 This is because
20 That’s because
21 (But) my point is (that)
2/2
The point is,
Macro DMs from 2 Science Transcripts
22(So, the first thing that) we
discovered
What we discovered
23(And the second thing that)
0/1
you’ll notice
You’ll notice here (that)

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 2124(but) imagine if
12/12
Imagine that
Imagine thisLet’s imagine
Just imagine that
You can imagine
I just want you to imagine
I want you to first imagine
25 Think about it.
2/2
Think about it this way.
26 If you think about (it)2/2
27 So suppose now
3/3
Suppose28 (Now) we know that
3/3
29 (But) the question is
4/4
Macro DMs from 2 Global Issues Transcripts
30 I’m going to focus
I want to focus
31 We realized (that)
1/2
We realized something…

8/9

17/23

6/9

13/14

6/6

62

-

1/1

2/2

3/3

1/2

9

1/1
-

2/3
-

2/2
-

2/2
1/1

-

9
4

1/1

2/3
3/3

1/2
1/1

3/3
6/6

1/2
6/6

10
21

-

0/1

-

1/1

1/1

2

-

-

-

1/1

2/2

4

Table 2: Distribution of 31 macro discourse markers across different genres of talks

The data from Table 2 shows that there are occurrences ofmost macro discourse markers in each type of talk but not all of theoccurrences introduced ideas. The number 4/8, for example,
illustrates that there were eight occurrences of the marker ‘I
realized’ found in Business talks, but only four of them signaled
ideas.
In sum, 12 of the 31 markers occurred across six TED talkgenres: technology, entertainment, design, business, science, andglobal issues. Another 19 markers occurred in 5 genres, 4 genres,
3 genres, and 2 genres respectively. No marker occurred in only one
genre.

22 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

The Number of Macro Discourse Markers
Distributed in Genres of Talk
14

12

12
10
7

8
5

6

4

3

4
2

0

0
In all 6 genres

In 5 genres

In 4 genres

In 3 genres

In 2 genres

In 1 genre

Number of DMs
Figure 3: Number of macro discourse markers distributed across six TED talk genres

For more details, these are the explicit lists of markers andthe number of TED talk genres in which they occurred.
Distribution
In 6 Genres
In 5 Genres
In 4 Genres
In 3 Genres
In 2 Genres
In 1 Genre

Macro Discourse Markers
I think / if you want to / one thing / the reason…is /it turns out / what if / I mean / remember / I believe/ I realized / imagine / the question is
Think about it / if you think about / now we know that
I learned that/ here’s the thing / that’s because / I
have learned / the point isI want to be clear / I discovered / this is because / werealized /I want you to picture / I started to wonder / I want you
to think about / we discovered / you’ll notice / so
suppose now / I want to focus-

Number
12
3
5
4
7
-

Table 3: The list of macro DM categorized by the number of talk genres in which
they occurred

It can be noticed from Table 3 that 20 macro discourse
markers or 64 % of all markers occurred in 4 to 6 genres of talk.
The researcher views this number as representing a wide
distribution of macro discourse markers across genres. However,
11 markers occurred in only 2 or 3 talk genres, and further
explanation for their low rate of distribution is needed. Is it because
these macro discourse markers are specific to those talk genres, orPASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 23

is there another underlying reason? To investigate, the reference
corpus, TCSE or TED Corpus Search Engine, was used to identify
the frequency of markers in TED talks more generally. The resultsappear in the tables below:

I think

6 Genres
5,377

If you want to350

3 Genres
I want to be
32
clear
I discovered170

One thing

618

This is because49

The reason is
It turns out
What if

880
734
725

We realized123

I meanRemember
I believe
I realized
Imagine
The question is

1,735
61
781
490
642
243

2 Genres
I want you to17
pictureI started to12wonderI want you to
39think about
We discovered98
You’ll notice74
So suppose29
now
I want to focus
30

Table 4: The distribution of macro discourse markers on TCSE

The data implies that the low distribution rate of macro
discourse markers in this study is subject to their infrequency in
TED talks in general. The marker ‘I started to wonder’, for example,
occurred only 12 times in the TCSE and therefore it is not
unexpected that it is not distributed across genres in the corpus of
this study. This then confirms that the low distribution rate ofcertain discourse markers is not because they are specific to talk
topics, but rather because they themselves occur infrequently in
TED talks generally.
Another reason that may explain why some macro discourse
markers are distributed across only two or three genres is that they
performed functions other than only signaling ideas. The marker‘You’ll notice’, as illustrated in Table 2, for example, occurred in fivedifferent genres of talks, but it functioned as an idea signaler in only
two genres. That was why it was categorized in the low distributiongroup.
As 64 % of the macro discourse markers in this study were
distributed across genres and the remaining 36 % of the markers

24 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

were not specific to talk topics, the hypothesis was confirmed that
there are no significant differences between the distributions ofmacro-discourse markers across TED Talk genres.
Macro Discourse Markers Containing the Words ‘idea’ or‘ideas’The second part of the data collection was done by searching
the keywords ‘idea’ and ‘ideas’ in the TED-dm sub-corpora to
identify macro discourse markers that explicitly signal ideas to thelisteners. The markers found in each genre of talk are as follows:
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Macro discourse markers
Let’s shift our ideas about...
And today the idea behind this speech...
One of our recent ideas...
Here’s the idea
This next idea comes from...
This is based on an idea...
And that’s the idea
And that is the idea I’m trying to illustrate
And so my first idea is
And the idea is quite simple
And the basic idea is that
Which actually is, the idea of my talk
In hindsight, this idea
This is a bit of a strange idea
It’s an idea thatIt’s based on the idea that

Frequency
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1

Table 5: Macro discourse markers found in 25 Technology talks
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Macro discourse markers
And I had this idea:
The idea is...
But my today idea is
My idea today is to tell you that...
The idea was to...
That would be an idea you might take with you.
Thank you for letting me presents my idea about...
My idea today is to tell you that

Frequency
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1

Table 6: Macro discourse markers found in 25 Entertainment Talks

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 25

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Macro discourse markers
I really love this idea.
and so the idea is that
And the idea is to
The idea is very, very simple.
But there’s even another idea
all based on this one idea
I think we need to question this idea that
They are challenging the idea that
There’s an idea thatSo the idea was
So the basic idea was
The second idea worth questioning is

Frequency
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Table 7: Macro discourse markers found in 25 Design talks
No.
1
2
3
4

Macro discourse markers
The idea I want to leave you with is...
We look at the idea that...
His basic idea was that...
just to give you some ideas:

Frequency
11
1
1

Table 8: Macro discourse markers in 25 Business Talks
No.
1
2
3
4
5

Macro discourse markers
Think about that idea for a second.
The idea is,
And the idea is that,
And this is the whole idea of
because there’s this idea that

Frequency
1
2
1
1
1

Table 9: Macro discourse markers found in 25 Science talks
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6

Macro discourse markers
I want to give you four ideas as a starting point.
and one of the ideas
So here’s an idea.
The idea behind this law is that
The fourth and final idea I want to put forward is
We have a research idea that we think is perfectfor you.

Frequency
1
1
1
1
1
1

Table 10: Macro discourse markers found in 25 Global Issues talks

Obviously, all of these macro discourse markers highlighted
TED speakers’ intention to deliver ideas. Distinctions between the
51 markers were the word choices of the speakers themselves which
varied in terms of tenses, lexical verbs, adjectives, and co-occurring
micro markers.

26 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

Most of the markers were used more commonly in present
tense than in past tense to signal ideas that are ‘new’ to thelisteners. The lexical verbs that co-occurred with the word ‘idea’ or‘ideas’ were shift, based on, illustrate, tell, give, leave, look at, comefrom, question, present, and put forward. The markers also varied in
the choice of adjectives which co-occurred with the keyword ‘idea(s)’, for example, final, basic, whole, simple, strange, recent, andworth sharing. Some TED speakers used micro markers with theirmacro markers as well, for instance, and, and so, so, and but. Thesefour main features: tenses, lexical verbs, adjectives and macro
markers, contributed to a wide variety of macro discourse markers
that signal ideas.
Another hypothesis was therefore confirmed that there aremany macro-discourse markers that contain the word ‘idea’ or‘ideas’ found in the spoken discourse of TED Talks.
Conclusion
The results of this corpus-based study identified two sets of
discourse markers used by TED speakers to signal ideas. The first
set comprises 31 macro discourse markers of which 64% occurred
across all six popular TED talk genres. Although the other markers
were not distributed likewise across every genre, they were notspecific to a certain topic of talk. Therefore, it can be concluded thatthese macro discourse markers are available for use in all six talk
topics: technology, entertainment, design, business, science, andglobal issues.
The second set of discourse markers found 51 various waysthat speakers can express ideas to listeners. With markers madeexplicit by the addition of the word ‘idea’ or ‘ideas’, listeners cannot
fail to recognize that an ‘idea’ is being passed to them from the
speaker. The variations in discourse markers in this group are
subject to the speakers’ choice of tense, lexical verb, adjective, andco-occurring micro-marker. One speaker, for example, might use‘so the basic idea was’ while another speaker may use ‘the next idea
comes from’, but both have the same underlying goal; that is, todeliver an idea to the listener.

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 27

The results of this study highlight the fact that there is a wide
range of discourse markers used in academic spoken discourse tosignal ideas. Some macro discourse markers appearing in TED
talks might resemble the discourse markers found in lectures (e.g.
I believe that, remember, the reason is) by Morell (2000), andChaudron and Richards (1986), but several are new contributions
to the list. One more observation is that, the large number ofmarkers that contain the word ‘idea’ or ‘ideas’ is particularly
noteworthy in TED Talk presentations since the main goal of TED
speakers is to deliver ideas to listeners.
Pedagogical Implications
The list of macro discourse markers identified in this study
can be beneficial in a pedagogical context. Teachers may encourage
their students in a public speaking course to express ideas moreclearly and effectively using these discourse markers. Students whoneed to deliver a speech in public may use some of these markers
to sound more natural when discussing ideas. The marker ‘So, here
is an idea.’, for example, can be used to signal that a talk hasreached a significant point or that the speaker has a solution tooffer. There will be less overproduction of the marker ‘I think’ aswell when the students learn to share the role of thinking with theiraudiences by engaging them with discourse markers like ‘if you
think about’, ‘imagine’, and ‘picture that for a moment.’
Although the list of macro discourse markers in this study
was derived from the highly monologic talks of TED speakers, it isnoteworthy that the list is applicable to other interactive activities
like group discussions and debates, as long as they involve the actof expressing or exchanging ideas. For example, the marker ‘I think
we need to question the idea that…’ can help students to raise theirargument in a debate and the marker ‘the point is’ can be helpfulin group discussions.
Nevertheless, to my knowledge, there are no explicit lessons
or activities in Thai schools that specifically focus on macro
discourse markers in spoken discourses. Students often learn thecohesive expressions, such as, however, on the other hand, and28 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

what is more, in essay writing but are seldom taught to recognize
the role of discourse markers in speaking. It is therefore important
for teachers to start emphasizing the use of discourse markers as
they contribute to the naturalness of students’ language use. The
macro discourse markers identified in this study can serve as an
initial list. Teachers could consciously use these markers
themselves in the classroom when their goal is to effectively deliver
ideas to their students. They can also include these markers
explicitly in lessons and activities like group discussions, debates,and presentations.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
There are three principal limitations to this present study.
First, it investigated a preliminary set of discourse markers foundin only 150 TED talk transcripts. A larger number of TED Talktranscripts would provide more representative data and allow for
more concrete generalizations.
Second, the frequency number of discourse markers foundin the TCSE as shown in Table 4 is an estimate. The researcher
cannot claim with certainty that the discourse markers of this study
signaled ideas in all those occurrences. While the marker ‘One
thing’, for example, occurred 618 times in TCSE, some of these
might

as

well

introduce

information.

Therefore,

the

only

assumption the researcher could make was: the higher the numberof DMs occuring in TCSE, the greater the tendency for them tofunction as idea signalers. Future researchers might want to limit
the number of discourse markers they wish to study so all
occurrences in TSCE could be reasonably analyzed.
Finally, the decision to consider a marker as an idea signaler
was based on the judgment of the researcher alone. The result
would be more reliable if raters helped to confirm the data.
The Authors
Kanokrat Uicheng (kanokrat.uc@gmail.com) is an English
teacher at Deebukphangnga Wittayayon School, Phang-nga,
Thailand. She graduated with a B.A. in English from Silpakorn

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 29

University and is now pursuing her master’s degree in English at
the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. Her field of study isin corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.
Michael Crabtree (crabtree@chula.ac.th) is a member of the
English Department at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn
University, where he teaches Thai-English translation, researchmethodology, advanced composition, and contemporary fiction.
References
Bellés, B. (2004) The Spoken Academic Discourse of Social
Sciences: Discourse Markers within the University Lecture
Genre. Unpublished Master Thesis. Castellón (Spain):
Universitat Jaume I
Caliendo, G., & Compagnone, A. (2014). Expressing epistemic
stance in university lectures and TED talks: a contrastive
corpus-based analysis. Lingue E Linguaggi, 11, 105-122.
doi:10.1285/i22390359v11p105
Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (2006). The Cambridge grammar ofEnglish: A comprehensive guide. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Chaudron, C., & Richards, J. C. (1986). The effect of discourse
markersonthecomprehensionoflectures.

Applied

Linguistics, 7(2), 113-127. doi:10.1093/applin/7.2.113
Dülger, O. (2007) Discourse markers in writing. Selçuk University,
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 18 (2007), pp. 257-270
Flowerdew, J., & Tauroza, S. (1995). The effect of discourse markers
on second language lecture comprehension. Studies inSecondLanguage

Acquisition,

17(04),

435.

doi:10.1017/s0272263100014406
Fraser, B. (1996). Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics, 6(2), 167-190.
Jalilifar, A. (2008). A Comparative Study of Message Functions inWritten and Spoken Reported Speech Produced by Iranian
EFL Students. Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use.
Lai, Y., & Lin, Y. (2012). Discourse markers produced by Chinesespeaking seniors with and without Alzheimers disease.

30 | PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018

Journal of Pragmatics, 44(14), 1982-2003.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2012.09.002
Landone, E. (2012). Discourse markers and politeness in a digitalforum in Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(13), 1799-1820.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2012.09.001
Lee-Goldman, R. (2010). No as a discourse marker. Journal of
Pragmatics, 1-46.
Morell, T. (2000). EFL content lectures: A discourse analysis of aninteractive and a non-interactive style. Working papers 7.
Alicante,

Spain:

DepartamentodeFilologaí

Inglesa,

Universidad de Alicante.
Rezanova, Z. I., & Kogut, S. V. (2015). Types of discourse markers:
their ethnocultural diversity in scientific text. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 215, 266-272.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.633
Rhee, S. (2013).

“I Know

I’m Shamelessto Saythis”:

Grammaticalization of the Mitigating Discourse Marker
Makilay in Korean. Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 97, 480-486,
doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.262.
Rido, A. (2015). The use of discourse markers as an interactive
feature in science lecture discourse in L2 setting. TEFLIN
Journal, 21(1).
Roggia, A. (2012).

Eh as a polyfunctional discourse marker in

Dominican Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 44 (13), 17831798. doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.08.010.
Schiffrin, D. (2001). Discourse markers: Language, meaning andcontext. In: Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H. E.
(Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Blackwell,
Malden, MA, pp.54-75.
Schiffrin, D. 1987a Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tanghe, S. (2016). Position and polyfunctionality of discourse
markers: The case of Spanish markers derived from motion
verbs. Journal of Pragmatics, 93, 16-31
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2015.12.002

PASAA Vol. 55 January - June 2018 | 31

Tay, D. (2011). Discourse markers as metaphor signaling devices in
psychotherapeutic talk. Language & Communication, 31(4),310-317. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2011.02.001
Tsai, T.J. (2015). Are you TED talk material? comparing prosody inprofessors and TED speakers. INTERSPEECH.
Zhang, M. (2000). Cohesive features in the expository writing ofundergraduates in two Chinese universities. RELC Journal,
31 (1), 61-95