Rizalia S. GarciaA class of linguistic devices that includes words and expressions like anyway, but, yknow, mind you, and many others are discourse markers which have been of substantial interest to researchers studying situated language use because of their role in demarcating discourse connections as well as their potential for indexing social relationships. Discourse markers are words or phrases that function primarily as a structuring unit of spoken language. To the listener, a DM signals the speaker's intention to mark a boundary in discourse, such as the beginning of a new topic or the expression of a response: (Fraser, 1999; Jucker & Ziv,1998; Lenk, 1998; Schiffrin, 1987).

1. You know = gained popularity as an interjection during the early 1960's, as television began to take over pop culture. The phrase serves as a conversational breather and has no real contextual meaning. Its usage has remained steady, I would say, no more frequent than it was back then.Listen to high school chatter today and you'll hear the word 'like' similarly used as a meaningless interjection. It's simply a device, to keep the conversation flowing and to make discourse with one's peers. You know is among the most common of these hesitation forms. Its meaning is not the imperious 'you understand' or even the old interrogatory 'do you get it?' It is given as, and taken to be, merely a filler phrase, intended to fill a beat in the flow of sound, not unlike like, in its new sense of, like, a filler word. . . .

These staples of modern filler communication--I mean, you know, like--can also be used as 'tee-up words. In olden times, pointer phrases or tee-up words were get this, would you believe? and are you ready? The function of these nudging phrases was--are you ready?--to make the point, to focus the listener's attention on what was to follow.

"If the purpose is to tee up a point, we should accept you know and its friends as a mildly annoying spoken punctuation, the articulated colon that signals 'focus on this. If the purpose is to grab a moment to think, we should allow ourselves to wonder: Why are filler phrases needed at all? What motivates the speaker to fill the moment of silence with any sound at all?"(William Safire, Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade. Random House, 1997) "Hey, hey, shh, shh, shh. Come on. Be sensitive to the fact that other people are not comfortable talking about emotional disturbances. Um, you know, I am, I'm fine with that, but . . . other people."

2. Mind you = is an expression that is used to draw attention to an important fact that is important to a statement. It also emphasizes on the other hand. Consider the examples below:a. That sweater really doesn't fit her. Mind you, that is a nice sweater. I can see why she picked it.b. He's very untidy about the house; mind you, I'm not much better. Mind you is much wider used in British as opposed to American English. It is described as operating in two ways. First, mind you operates in its original source meaning as an attention marker which summons the hearer's attention through its imperative form to a repetition of, or elaboration on, information already presented in the discourse. In this use, the speaker wants to be sure that the hearer understands the full import of the highlighted information. However, this was a very infrequent use of mind you. Second, in its most frequent occurrence, mind you is used as a mainly non-concessive discourse marker. In this function, mind you often abruptly shifts the focus of the discourse away from the ideational content of the discourse onto the process of discourse construction itself by making overt the speaker's own meaning making processes and his or her shifting commitment to previous arguments. In this way, the use of mind you suggests unplanned, spontaneous meaning making. It is also argued that the way mind you signals cancellation or a weakening of an aspect of information derivable from the previous discourse is often achieved through self-deprecation. The whole process of laying bare those inner workings and especially the use of self-deprecation fosters interactive warmth by promoting intimacy and solidarity between the speaker and hearer.3. Even so = is an adverb which has one sense and is defined as anything despite to the contrary or despite what has just been said and usually follow a compromise. It is similar to however, nevertheless, nonetheless, notwithstanding, in spite of that..Examples:a. That may be true, but even so we will investigate further, or she claimed it contained no garlic, but even so I could taste it.b. I had a terrible headache, but even so I went to the concert.c. An immediate interest cut might give a small boost to the economy. Even so, any recovery is likely to be very slow.c. This place fills up with tourists in the summer, but even so, there are plenty of places for them to stay.d.I know you claim not to care about the breakup; even so, you keep talking about it.

4. Believe it or notThe phrase "Believe it or not," introduces something that the listener might be surprised to hear. For example, an out-of-shape older man might tell his niece:Believe it or not, I used to be a championship swimmer back in high school.

People mostly use "believe it or not" to talk about something that's surprising to the listener. But sometimes people also use it sarcastically. For example, if your spouse tries to give you advice while you're driving, you might say:

Believe it or not, I do know how to drive, you know.

This phrase is an idiomatic expression, prefixed to statements that are told as true facts, but are deemed to be hard to believe, as in: "Believe it or not, blackberries are not berries!"Believe it or not is used at the beginning sentence to state that something is true whether one chooses to believe it or not. ex. "Believe it or not, I still care for her."(Its true, whether you agree or not)5. Just as wellis used to say that an occurrence, or situation, is not only fortunate, but that for the contrary, it could have been a lot worse or that something at the first glance might seem bad, is actually good just because it could have been even much worse or because the alternative case or cases could have been even much worse. It is a good thing to do, or a lucky thing to happen or be done.This expression is usually used with be. egs.It's just as well. (It is a good thing.)It's beginning to rain - it's just as well that we brought our umbrellas.It's just as well you're not here - you wouldn't like the noiseHe left at three, which was just as well or he'd have missed the train.It would be as well to check the small print.

References:Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Copyright 1997. Published by Houghton MifflinCambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus. Cambridge University Press

Andreas H. Jucker. Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory

Websters New World AMERICAN IDIOMS HANDBOOKEnglish Language and Linguistics online May 1997 1 : pp 91-110David M. Bell Journal of Pragmatics Copyright 2012 Elsevier

Bruce Fraser An approach to discourse markers

Lenk, 1998.Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken EnglishSchiffrin, 1987. Marking Discourse Coherence: Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken English

William Safire, Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade. Random House, 1997)