Functional classification of English discourse markers

The article is aimed at designing a full-fledged functional classification of English discourse markers. At the present point, the functional classifications described in academic discourse do not cover all possible functions of discourse markers in a text, which appear to be highly important for effective textbuilding. The research material is academic texts in English. The choice of this textual material is based on the requirements of the academic style, which is characterized by a well-organized structure, logic and clear cause-and-effect relations. Thus, in academic texts there is a necessity to provide a strong logical link between its elements, and discourse markers are the elements that are able to achieve this goal. The authors analyzed 15 academic papers in English (306 pages), in which they picked discourse markers by the continuous sampling method. Then by defining the textual function of each discourse marker, the authors designed the typology of these speech units, based on the functional criterion. The research is resulted in the detailed functional classification of English discourse markers, which covers all the variety of their functional potential in text. The research results can be used for prospective research on text discourse issues, for writing academic papers in English; and they also can be useful for researchers dealing with mathematical linguistics, in particular, generating texts with the help of artificial intelligence.