Discourse markers … so …
Recently, I’ve been listening to a series of lectures given by Anne Curzan, a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan. One of her lectures was on “discourse markers,” a special feature of spoken English. Discourse markers are those little words or phrases you may not even notice … so, oh, now, well, I mean … that play some very important roles in conversation. This topic was so interesting that I decided to write a series of blog posts about each of the words she discussed.
So, the first word we’ll look at is so.
“This topic was so interesting …” In this sentence, I’m using so as an adverb, to modify interesting. Beware, because I’ve heard speakers improperly use the adverb “so” instead of “too” — but they mean two different things. Too means “to an excess” (this soup is too hot); whereas so just means “really” (that movie was so good).
But how about so as a discourse marker, when it’s used in spoken English? What does it do there? Well, it can do different things.
First, it can signal an effect or logical consequence of what came before (and it does this in written English as well, as you can see in the second paragraph of this article).
Speaker: I was really focused on my work … I mean, I was tuning everything else out … and I really didn’t hear my phone … so my girlfriend is pretty mad cuz, you know, she thought it was on purpose, like I didn’t want to talk to her.
Also, so can introduce a summary or a rephrasing of something you just said.
Lecturer: So we’ve been discussing phrasal verbs … um … so those very common expressions in English that usually include a very common verb and those prepositions that really aren’t prepositions.
We can use so when we tell stories or narratives. Anne Curzan points out that they work almost like paragraph breaks in written English.
Speaker: So I was in English class and I was getting kind of sleepy and I guess I might have even drifted off a little bit. So my teacher suddenly called on me and everybody else started laughing at me because I didn’t know the answer. So, you know, I was upset and I ended up just walking out of the class. So now my teacher is mad and she says she’s going to mark me as absent.
Anne Curzan also notes that when someone interrupts our story, we often get it back on track with so or so anyway. For example:
Speaker: So anyway, I don’t know what to do because if I have another absence I’ll flunk this class.
We may also hear so used in response to questions; it can signal our willingness to answer a question and to make a connection with the person asking the question. For example, in an interview:
Interviewer: I’d be interested in knowing your opinions about the current political situation in China.
Expert: So that’s an interesting question. We probably need to look at several different aspects …
Finally so, asked in a questioning tone of voice (with a rising intonation) can be used to ask for a response from another person.
Speaker 1: I went to the doctor today.
Speaker 2: So? (with a rising intonation; in other words, “what happened?”)
