A pragmatic analysis of discourse markers in the movie coco (2017)

This study aims to analysed discourse markers in the movie Coco (2017) to show how language elements play a role in constructing communication, emotions, and cultural meaning through movie dialogue. There are two main problems used in this study, they are: (1) What types and functions of discourse markers are used in the dialogue of the movie Coco (2017)? and (2) What discourse markers in the movie Coco (2017) do not fit Fraser's categorisation and demonstrate functions that differ from or go beyond their typical classification?. This study uses a qualitative descriptive approach to provide a clear and systematic explanation of the discourse markers found in the movie. The research data were taken from the English script of the movie Coco (2017) and analysed using Fraser's (1996) theory. The researcher watched the entire movie, compared the dialogue with the script obtained from the website Amazon, and identified every utterance containing discourse markers. The data found were classified based on type and analysed by their function in the context of conversation. The results of this study indicate that there are four main types of discourse markers found in the movie Coco (2017), namely contrastive markers, elaborative markers, inferential markers, and topic change markers. The researcher found a total of 265 data categorised as discourse markers. Elaborative markers were the most dominant with 125 data, followed by contrastive markers with 100 data, then inferential markers with 25 data, and finally topic change markers with 15 data. In this study, the researcher found a total of 12 discourse markers that did not fit into the function categories according to Fraser (1996). Some markers, like well, actually, but, so, and, and then, showed different functions because their use was influenced by the dialogue context in the movie Coco (2017). These findings show that discourse markers are flexible and can change their function depending on the situation, which is different from the fixed categories in theoretical classifications. The use of discourse markers in this movie serves to connect ideas, regulate the flow of conversation, express emotions, and show the relationships between characters. Thus, it can be concluded that discourse markers play an important role in maintaining coherence and conveying pragmatic meaning in movie narratives.