Exploring Gender Differences Under the Lens of Discourse Markers in Mohsin’s The Diary of a Social Butterfly

Abstract

The study aims to explore gender differences in terms of using discourse markers in the novel The Diary of a Social Butterfly. Schiffrin's (2014) model has been applied as the framework of the study. Hence, the data has been comprised of thirty-six paragraphs selected through the purposive sampling technique. Meanwhile, it has been analyzed by using software known as Ant Conc. The findings revealed that both gender characters have used discourse markers such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, ‘like’, ‘actually’, ‘rather’, when’, and then in the conversation. The female characters have used more discourse markers as linguistic fillers than the males and certain markers ‘like’, ‘and’, ‘so’ and ‘but” remained dominant throughout their conversation.