Politeness and modality: Discourse markers

This paper provides evidence for the function of discourse markers in the expression of politeness and modality in the discourse of a therapeutic interview. The analysis is based on pragmatic theory, conversational analysis and politeness strategies, as facilitators of the social relations and of the interactants, expression roles in discourse (Brown & Levinson, 1987). The results show that the choice of one discourse marker or another is dependent on the tension between power and solidarity in the contextual situation, in agreement with the politeness strategies at work. This evidence supports that the control of conversational turns and the content of the interview are correlated with the initial context of the beginning of the interviewer's turn, either in the professional's medical-empathetic voice or educational-empathetic voice. These results contrast with a greater degree of overlapping functions and higher frequency of the discourse markers used by the interviewed patient's informative voice, as well as by the professional's educational-empathetic voice, which has an inducing, instructive and appealing function.