한국언어과학회

This paper investigates the functions of discourse markers yeah and yes used in the Buckeye Corpus and the interaction between these markers and speakers' stance. Firstly, the ambiguous stance discourse functions of yeah and yes are examined based on speakers' stance. Six common functions are identified, including Agreement(AGR), Backchannel(BC), Discourse Boundary(DB), Disagreement(DIS), Ending Discourse(ED), and Solicit(SOL). Secondly, six functions of yeah and yes are analyzed, and the main and non-main stance functions that are commonly found in both yeah and yes are identified. Thirdly, the most frequently used stance functions of yeah and yes are explored in various discourse contexts, namely AGR, BC and DB. There was no example where English marker yes was used as a SOL function. To confirm the significant differences in functions based on speakers' stance, chi-square tests and standardized residuals are conducted, revealing significant differences in the functions of yeah and yes based on speakers' stance.