The use of discourse markers by Prabowo Subianto as an english non-native speaker in bloomberg live youtube channel

This study aims to analyze the functions of discourse markers used by Prabowo Subianto in the Bloomberg Live YouTube video entitled “In Conversation With President-Elect Prabowo Subianto.” The video presents how Prabowo Subianto, the Indonesian president-elect, delivers his ideas and opinions during a formal international interview. There are two problems to be solved in this research: (1) What function of discourse markers was used by Prabawo Subianto, as suggested by Fraser's theory in a video entitled "In Conversation With President-Elect Prabowo Subianto" from the Bloomberg Live YouTube channel? and (2) What kind of discourse markers were used by Prabowo Subianto that did not follow the appropriate functions suggested by Fraser's theory in a video entitled "In Conversation With President-Elect Prabowo Subianto" from the Bloomberg Live YouTube channel? This research employs Fraser’s (2005) theory of discourse markers, which classifies them into four types: contrastive, elaborative, inferential, and temporal markers. This qualitative study aims to identify the function of discourse markers that were used properly and did not align with the theory used. The data were collected by transcribing the video and identifying the discourse markers used, then analyzed based on their functions. The findings show that Prabowo employed all the discourse markers based on Fraser’s theory. There are contrastive markers with 2 occurrences, elaborative markers with 17 occurrences, inferential markers with 11 occurrences, and temporal markers with 9 occurrences. While Fraser’s framework categorizes discourse marker functions into four types, this research identified several instances where the markers were used in ways that did not align with their expected roles. A total of 11 occurrences demonstrated that Prabowo used discourse markers such as “and” and “but” in ways that did not follow their conventional functions. Instead of simply adding or contrasting ideas, they were often used to shift topics, summarize points, or introduce conclusions. These findings suggest that while Fraser’s theory helps understand discourse markers, real-world political speech in real-life settings tends to show more varied and practical uses, influenced by speaker intention, context, and cognitive processing in real-time.