Are discourse markers related to age and educational background? A comparative account between two sign languages

This paper presents a pilot investigation of two discourse markers, namely PALM-UP and SAME, in French Belgian Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language. The two discourse markers are studied from a cross-linguistic and a cross-generational perspective using two comparable samples of argumentative productions. The analysis shows that the two discourse markers are highly polyfunctional. Although they have language-specific functions, most of these functions are shared between the two languages. Furthermore, the use of the two discourse markers is idiosyncratic in both sign language datasets. In the small-scale pilot study described in this article, factors such as age or level of education do not seem to influence the usage of the two discourse markers in question.