Monografico_8_EN_Doxa_31_Discourse_markers

B: healthcare workers always obey orders, don’t come down on them when the fault lies with those at the top, my friend. Doctors and nurses would be the first to want to attend to everyone and to help them. But (Pero) though it’s cruel your family problem only affects your relative, while this affects us all and its spread increases the deaths I know it’s not fair, it’s just 1 explanation. But (Pero) I say again they don’t give the orders (YouTube, 14-03-2020).

In these comments, pero marks the opposition between two segments that lead to opposing conclusions, but which are related. Some of the comments in which pero is used combine with other particles. These are structures such as pero bueno, which normally attenuate what is going to be said in the counter-argument (8), and pero claro in (9), which leaves to one side what has been said, which is accepted to a certain degree before the speaker moves on to another matter which he/she considers to be of greater argumentative weight in order to affirm his/her position. In this case it has a meta-discursive value, as a marker of transition to another discursive aspect. (Domínguez García, 2007: 107):

(8) A: Do you really need to be told? Do you imagine that people who’ve made their own face coverings have done it because the government told them to?

B: well yeah. In fact I work in a health clinic and the doctors told us that surgical masks did nothing to prevent contagion, as the particles went straight through the cloth. Now any old piece of cloth does the job...so there’s something here that doesn’t add up. But well (Pero Bueno) I suppose we all feel a little calmer when we see the guy next to us with his mouth covered though it’s only with a scrap of cloth (Facebook, 19-05-2020).

(9) You disgust me. If you’d acted sooner none of this would have happened. But of course (Pero claro) demos were more important than health. Come on man, come on. What the hell are you doing... (YouTube, 14-03-2020).

4.1.2. Encima, además, incluso & sobre todo (what’s more, moreover, even & especially)

Among the group of connectors identified in the corpus, the additives encima, además, incluso and sobre todo stand out. Taking the first two, one should remember that using encima “a personal valuation is granted to the second argument: a modal value is added that is lacking in además” (Domínguez García, 2007: 66). In these comments, encima and además order the segments of the discourse on a rising scale, in such a way that the segment they introduce is argumentatively stronger. Messages in which these two appear are addressed to the auditorium and, due to their frequency, the use of asides and of other markers in coordinate and subordinate sentence structures, are close to the conceptional variety of written language in the messages on the three networks, as in the following examples:

(11) Don’t lie. Surgical masks cost €0.40 and now €0.98.. “govt bargain price”, you have to use at least one a day and you can still catch it, no one knows who’s asymptomatic. An FFP2 costs €6 but lasts a month and what’s more (además) they prevent contagion. ARE WE ALL DAFT??? (Facebook, 19-05-2020).

(12) You have no idea of what you’ve approved, and moreover (encima) based on half-truths and lies. You should be ashamed of yourselves (Twitter, 28-04-2020).

(13) And to think there are still some who defend this rotten system. How Little critical sense they must have .... And as moreover (encima) our politicians don’t really decide anything, as all the decisions are taken in Germany,....[...] The truth is that the Euro has been ruinous for Europe, but how few voices say that !!! (YouTube, 01-03-2020).