earticle

영어

The primary goals of this paper are to find out how the discourse marker I mean as used in American talk shows functions in turn-initial position and how frequently turn-initial I mean appears as a marker for explicating what the previous speaker has mentioned. Among the previous studies about I mean in talk shows, Kang (2018) points out the counter-accounting function of utterance-initial I mean, and Kang (2019) notes that not only this function but also the addition of more information about the previous speaker’s comments are features that exclusively appear in talk shows. Drawing upon these two works, the current study explores the usages of turn-initial I mean in talk shows and compares the frequencies of each usage, focusing on the unique function of commenting about the previous speaker’s utterance. According to the analysis, it is found that turn-initial I mean has three distinct functions in talk shows, which are further explication of the previous utterance, counter-explication of the previous utterance, and stalling. Also, these two explicating functions are found to appear more often than other well-known functions of I mean such as repair and summarization. These results show that the functions and the frequencies of the discourse marker I mean are related to the institutional characteristics of talk shows as well as to the settings and goals of the participants, including both interviewers and interviewees.