فاطمه پور ابراهیم

In linguistics, Discourse Markers (DMs) have been researched extensively and this tendency to investigate DMs has begun for 30 years when pragmatics and functional approaches to linguistic studies came to the foreground of the linguistic stage. This study aims to study the discourse markers performance of Iranian male and female English learners of Bahare Zaban Amouzan and Iranian institutes in Ardabil city, focusing specifically on “you know”, to see how instruction and gender affect DM's usage. Having homogenized the participants by Oxford Placement Test including 80 learners while half were male and another half were female, in an introductory session, all were instructed about discourses markers. They also reviewed “you know” as discourse marker. Then a pre-test was given to all 4 groups. Having taken the exam, groups 1 and 3 were undergone five sessions of discourse markers instruction, focusing on “you know” while groups 2 and 4 were control group. Finally, post-test was given to 4 groups. The results of pre-test and post-test were compared and analyzed based on the two independent variables of gender and experimentation. Through an adopted analytical model, based on the two theoretical frameworks by Schiffrin and Brinton, the collected data were analyzed. Finally, significant differences were observed between DM performance of experimental and control groups, male and female groups. The results indicated that male participants tend to correct, elaborate, specify, or expand their discussion or dialogue more than female participants. This finding has significant classroom implications for EFL students and teachers, and is a useful method for further research in EFL speaking for researchers.