The Discourse Connector List (DCL) is a list of 632 discourse connectors analysed according to frequency in academic, non-academic and spoken registers in the BNC (British National Corpus) and COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English). This page explains what discourse connectors are, and gives some details about the Discourse Connector List itself, including a complete list of connectors in the DCL, which can be sorted according to frequency in the different corpora and registers.

To explore the list more fully, try the DCL highlighter (on this site).

What are discourse connectors?

The authors of the Discourse Connectors List (Rezvani Kalajahi, Neufeld and Abdullah, 2017) define discourse connectors (DCs) as words or phrases which join sentences or paragraphs together. They are one aspect of good cohesion in writing and speaking. The authors divide discourse connectors into three types:

• discourse markers, which are small words with little meaning on their own, e.g. well, OK, right, like;
• adverbial connectors (also called linking adverbials), e.g. however, while, in contrast;
• coordinating conjunctions, namely and, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet.

Adverbial connectors are distinct from coordinating conjunctions in that they can provide cohesion at the clause, sentence or paragraph level, whereas coordinating conjunctions only provide cohesion within or between clauses. You can find out more about both in the transition signals section, where there are referred to as sentence connectors and clause connectors respectively.

What is the Discourse Connector List (DCL)?

The Discourse Connector List (DCL), developed by Rezvani Kalajahi, Neufeld and Abdullah (2017), classifies and describes 632 discourse connectors, ranking them by frequency in three different registers (academic, non-academic and spoken registers) in two different corpora, namely the BNC (British National Corpus) and COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English). This list is available to download as an Excel workbook under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license at http://tinyurl.com/thedcl.

The discourse connectors are categorised into eight classes, most of which are sub-divided into categories, as follows.

• (1) Additive, to add new information. There are two sub-categories:
  • (i) Equative, to give information of similar force (e.g. equally);
  • (ii) Reinforcing, to add greater weight (e.g. furthermore).
• (2) Apposition, to give examples or explanation. There are two sub-categories:
  • (i) Exemplification, to give examples (e.g. for example);
  • (ii) Restatement, to express in a different way (e.g. in other words).
• (3) Consequential, to give cause and effect relationships. There are three sub-categories:
  • (i) Causative, to show causes (e.g. due to);
  • (ii) Resultive, to introduce results or consequences (e.g. because);
  • (iii) Conditional, to identify the condition of an action (e.g. whether).
• (4) Comparison, to point out or imply resemblances between objects (e.g. like).
• (5) Contrastive, to introduce surprising or contrasting information. There are four types:
  • (i) Antithetic, to contrast by introducing a direct antithesis (e.g. then);
  • (ii) Concessive, to show unexpected result (e.g. still);
  • (iii) Reformulatory, to contrast by reformulating, frequently using by or and rather (e.g. or better);
  • (iv) Replacive, to replace an item with a more important one (e.g. rather).
• (6) Clarification, to clarify a point of view, attitude or statement. There are three types:
  • (i) Corroborative, to strengthen the argument (e.g. indeed);
  • (ii) Emphasizing, to add emphasis (e.g. in fact);
  • (iii) Generalization, to give a statement true in most situations (e.g. generally).
• (7) Sequential, to or list main points and signal the sequence. There are three types:
  • (i) Ordering, to list based on chronological order (e.g. first, then);
  • (ii) Timing, to indicate sequence in time (e.g. after, immediately);
  • (iii) Transitional, to move from one topic to another (e.g. by the way).
• (8) Summative, to conclude or sum up preceding information (e.g. overall).

The DCL

The full DCL is given below. Use the buttons to change the corpus/register and the class of discourse connector. The default is BNC academic, and all classes.

References

Rezvani Kalajahi, S. A. R., Neufeld, S., and Abdullah, A. N. (2017) 'The discourse connector list: a multi-genre cross-cultural corpus analysis', Text & Talk, 37(3), 283-310.