COGNITIVE-FUNCTIONAL MODEL OF DISCOURSE MARKERS AS A BASIS OF EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH OF COGNITIVE POTENTIAL THEREOF

Kamenskiy Mikhail Vasil'evich, Candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, sub-department of Romanic and Germanic linguistics and intercultural communication, North-Caucasus Federal University (1 Pushkina street, Stavropol, Russia), stavdev@mail.ru

81’42:811.111-26

Background. The research subject is a set of cognitive-functional characteristics of discourse markers as their immanent features that determine the ability of the researched class of language units to control the logic and interpretation of a discourse. The goal of the research is the experimental study of the cognitive potential of discourse markers based on a cognitive-functional model thereof.
Materials and methods. The research material was the Open American National Corpus (2010). The key method used in this research was automated natural language processing based on the author’s software “Cognitive-functional analyzer of discourse markers” which made it possible to analyze the statistically relevant amount of corpus material and validate the results of the analysis. The statistical analysis was also used when processing the empirical data.
Results. The author conducted the in-depth theoretical, distributive, and statisti¬cal analyses of the cognitive potential of discourse markers in different types of discourses. In particular, the peculiar cognitive and functional properties of discourse markers were studied, as well as their dependence on the type of a discourse. The role of discourse markers in the language system as semiotic representations of knowledge in communication was determined. The results of the research may be applicable in scientific works in discourse linguistics.
Conclusions. The experimental research of the cognitive potential of discourse markers based on English language material allowed the author to conclude that the developed cognitive-functional model of discourse markers is a valid, verifiable linguistic model. This model has made it possible to study the features of discourse markers as peculiar regulative elements of a discourse that function on the cognitive level of a discourse. The cognitive-functional model of discourse markers opens up new possibilities in conducting comparative researches aimed at determining similarities and distinct features of cognitive-functional properties of discourse markers in different languages.

discourse markers, cognitive approach, linguistic model, verification, statistical analysis, automated analysis.

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