In this introduction to the special issue Discourse markers and world Englishes, we briefly introduce our definition of discourse-pragmatic markers (by all means contentious items to define) and give a short overview of previous research on discourse markers in world Englishes. As the main bulk of previous research in this field has been based on material from Inner Circle Englishes, the aim of this collection of articles is twofold: (1) to provide insight into underresearched varieties of English; and (2) to investigate underresearched discourse-pragmatic items. Discourse markers are not only a powerful means to index social meaning and carry a wide range of functions, they are also indicative of ‘glocalisation’. As such, discourse-pragmatic items can provide important input to the modelling of world Englishes in general and the description of individual varieties specifically.

中文翻译：

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话语标记和世界英语

在这个特刊的介绍中话语标记和世界英语，我们简要介绍了我们对语篇语用标记的定义（通过所有有争议的项目来定义），并简要概述了以前对世界英语中的语篇标记的研究。由于该领域以前的大部分研究都是基于 Inner Circle Englishes 的材料，因此本系列文章的目的有两个：（1）提供对未充分研究的英语变体的洞察；(2) 调查研究不足的语篇语用项目。话语标记不仅是索引社会意义的有力手段并具有广泛的功能，它们也是“全球本地化”的标志。因此，语篇语用项目可以为一般的世界英语建模和具体的个别变体的描述提供重要的输入。