Thesis abstract:

«p»Discourse markers (henceforth DMs) in recent years have obtained much interest in the field of Linguistics. In Indonesian, for instance, two of the most frequently uttered DMs in the spoken conversations are ya and nggak, equal to English yes and no. Their meaning may seem straightforward, yet in daily conversations other functions, apart from their basic meaning of agreement and disagreement respectively, are possible as well. Notwithstanding, they have not gained much attention in Indonesian literature in the recent years. It is owing to the fact that there has not been a rich body of research available on the uses of ya, and other types of Indonesian DMs, such as, loh, kan, sih, ih, kok, dong, yuk, etc. Additionally, there is no such study which was ever performed in overseas contexts, particularly within Indonesian community in Sydney, Australia. This work will fulfill the gap and contributes to current understanding of the dynamics of Indonesian DMs in conversations. Thus, the project investigates the types and interpretations of Indonesian Discourse Markers (DMs) spoken by Indonesians in Sydney, Australia by pursuing the following goals: identifying the varieties of Indonesian DMs uttered by Indonesians when they are interacting within their Indonesian community in Sydney; examining possible interpretations of these spoken DMs; investigating the motivations of uttering these DMs; and expanding the literature on Indonesian DMs spoken by Indonesians, and particularly establishing such cases spoken by Indonesians in overseas. This adopts an Interactional Linguistic (IL) approach involving Indonesian-born speakers who have been living in Sydney and are routinely involved within their Indonesian community. Their activities will be recorded using a video recorder, supplemented by an audio recorder. «/p»