| Discourse markers, according to Schiffrin, are"sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk". (Schiffrin, 1987 37) Since Deborah Schiffrin's Discourse Markers (1987) got published, the study of discourse markers has turned into a"growth industry"(Fraser, 1999) in linguistics. However, the study of discourse markers does not follow a unitary approach. The main divergence among scholars who study discourse markers exists in terms, properties and functions.The coherence-based perspective scholars mainly focus on the semantic features and pragmatic functions of discourse markers with respect to coherence relations in discourse. Most scholars in this perspective agree that discourse markers are useful devices for the cohenrence of the text and discourse, both for the local and global coherence relations. Therefore, this thesis will employ the coherence-based perspective to analyze how discourse markers contribute to discourse coherence both on the local and global level within discourse. This thesis discusses definitions, properties, different approaches and functions of discourse markers with the focus on the functions. The present study chooses speeches delivered by American President Barack Obama as its research topic. By employing the present approach and analyzing the data from political speech, it is hoped that some linguistic features of President Obama's speech will be discovered. The overall aim of this thesis is to review the functions of discourse markers in the textual discourse and the features of discourse markers in Obama's political speeches.
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