LINKING WORDS Funetions Discourse markers link one idea to another in speech or writing. They clarify relationships between sentences and ideas for listeners or readers. The following words may have more than one function COMPARISON Similarly imilar to similar manner Like Justas —f ustlike Tobe alike Likewise Almost the same as | The same as In the same way To have in common Asif As though Correspondingly as (adj /adv) as Identival(ly) In relation to Equal / Equivalent to | To resemble CONTRAST However Nevertheless ill Although (Even) though Despite/ In spite of Despite the fact that | Whereas In contrast B While (On the other hand (On the contrary By (In) contrast. | To compare to/ with | In comparison to Conversely Otherwise ‘Alternatively [Unlike To differ from Yet Nonetheless After all ‘Apart from ‘On (the) one hand In practice In theory COMMENT & ATTITUDE Fortunately Unfortunately | incidentally [Nonmally «| Typically Interestingly Surprisingly Astonishingly Ideally Obviously Honestly Frankly Persoually Clearly Theoretically Scrivusly Predictably Strongly | Miraculously Understandably Confidentially Simply "| Eeonomically Officially Berg Beat “Treaty — ee hh se Ter (CSSa rr eeDEGREE & EXTENT& INTENSITY & EMPHASIS oderately Pretty Quite Relatively er ~__ | increasingly Somewhat Up toa point Almost Practically Completely some extent ‘Toa great extent Toalimited extent | Thoroughly “Extemely Execedingly Grossly Notably ignificantly Dramatically Considerably Immeasurably Sufficiently Adequately Enough Parlly Partially Excessively Mainly Mostly Approximately Roughly Just about ily Enormously Highly Noticeably Terribly Truly Unusually Immensely Tremendously Entirely Markedly ely Profiundly Viriaally Hugely “rety much Fantastically Amazingly utstandingly [Asioundingly Absolutely Undeniably Unquestionably ‘Admittedly Indeed In fact Particularly i Incredibly ‘Naturally More or less Increasingly Entirely Sirongly Specifically Th particular So Definitely Certainly Utterly Undoubtedly “Awhully. Terribly | Severely Intensely Acutely ADDITION & SEQUENCE adition Furthermore Moreover Also ‘As well as ‘And now Besides FFor oue thing, ‘Additionally By ean Mote importantly One more point Firstly) To begin with To start with ‘he first point First ofall Initially In the first place “The first feature Secondly Third(ly) ‘Subsequently [Next earlier Aer that Then Afierwards The former The latter What is more Not only...but also acer Lasily Ultimately Finally |24 Pa CAUSE For Because Since As Because of Due to That's why The result of The reason for In the view of For the sake of By virtue of Hence now that | so (adj /adv) that (On account of RESULT So Asa result In consequence of Consequently ‘Therefore Thus ‘Accordingly For this reason RESTATEMENT & CONCLUSION: lj In brief In short ~_ [inaword | Generally | On the whole Overall ~_|Inconclusion | Insummary | Inother words —[allinall ‘That implies | Asa general rule In some senses To be more precise ‘To be exact ‘To put it simply That is (0 say) To sum up ~_ | Toconelude | To summerise ALTERNATIVE Or either ...or whether...or... | Instead Instead of Rather than Alternatively Interchangeably EXAMPLE For example For instance A prime example Including Namely Tn this case In another case lake the case of To illustrate To clarify this point | To take another example | In particular Such as Like ‘A ease in point is particularly Particularly A ped manabariaa (In aacer ‘Asia model/sample CONDITION u Even if Ifso Ifnot Provided that Providing On condition that Depending on It(all) dependson _| Unless Otherwi ‘As long asPart? 25 TIME & FREQUENCY "As soon as Just as Meanwhile While When Immediately Lately Recently —s_| |Now During Since For ‘Shortly before Long before Shortly after Soon after ‘| Long after In the (near) future As long as ‘These days | Nowadays At present At the same time At the moment Until very recently | Until After before By the time Ever since Since then Later ‘Whenever So far Simultaneously Eventually Atlast Gradually Little by little Bit by bit Hardly ever Regularly ‘Normally Soon Inno time Later Constantly Over and over (Currently Al the time Most of the time ‘Now and then [Now and again Just now Inthe course of time | Sooner or later Indue course Prior to Always Occasionally ‘From time to time At times Sometimes ‘Once in a while 1 Pretty often ————_| Pretty frequently Seldom Almost never Srarcely Almost always Every now and then At (regular) Intervals Commonly All the time: | (Bvery) now and then | Continuously Intermitiently Rarely Predominately On a regular basis, On a daily basis On occasion (s) ina while ‘As usual Every day/week Every other day/week ‘CERTAINTY & PROBABILITY ly Certainly ‘Most probably Probably | Maybe Perhaps Possibly ‘Supposedly Unlikely Highly unlikely Presumably seeminglyEXPRESIONS Functions LIKES 1 like/love/adore/enjoy... I've always liked/loved I'm quite fascinated by. I’m (very/deeply) intereste My main interest is... .interests/fascinates me a lot. I'm (really) fond of... T have a particular fondness for. I'm really keen on... Jam a real fan of... really appeals to me a great/ marvellous way to I’m intrigued by... 1 find it (quite/ absolutely) fascinating/interesting/enjoyable has always intrigued me Is fine/ excellent/ greal/ superb fantastic! fabulous/ marvellous It would make sense to me It's amazing/ smashing/ perfect \wonderful/incredible/ terrific DISLIKES I dow Ulike/enjoy/...vety much, I dislike/tuate... 1 don’t (particularly) care for. Tam not (very) interested in... I's (terribly/ awfully) boring. 1 find....sort of boring ~»-father bores me. It’s too... I don’t like,..at all, I don’t go for...{Infiml) P'm not into... (Infiml) It doesn’t appeal to me It's tedious Lam not fond of... Tam not keen on. I find...(particularly/ really/ \very) unattractive/ unpleasant Treally expect it to be beter’ inicer/... I don’t find it very interesting Tdon’t think it’s very interesting/ exciting, Um... [don’t have much/any interest in... find... (rather/ very/ totally) lboring/ dull NEUTRALITY Itmakes no difference to me | Is all the same to me I don’t mind I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me whether| OF MOL, Tdon’t hold any particular position on that issue/matterPart? 127 PREFERENCE Pd (much) prefer ..to ... Vd prefer not to... I'd (much) rather (not)... }Pdlike ... I tend to prefer... Tenjoy...(much) more than... like... ore/ better than... I'm much more interested in... | I’m (much) more attracted to. My choice’ preference would [On the whole, I find...more | On balance, ...appeals to me te... lattractive/interesting/enjoyable {more than... E ABILITY. Pmable to... Tan... I'm (pretty) good at... Thave the experience/ ability/ | ,, stations a yin Tm capable of | feel capable of CLARIFICATION mean ‘What | mean is. What I’m trying to say is... Fl le ‘That means... In short Well, as a matter of fact E Here, I'm referring to... In fact To be more precise, | To be exact... In other words. Let’s put it this way ACCOMPLISHMENTS I've managed... Thave managed to Td like to hav. I've been able to. |! was able to... Thope I'll have... CAUSES isthe main contributing factor,| ...is the cause o .is caused by... [There is a direct/close link ‘One of the main causes of this | The most important reason yeen ...and ... Iproblem is ... Another cause is...|why... Another reason is ...FUTURE (PLANS & HOPES & PREDICTION& CERTAINTY & PRODADILITY) | Next week/ month/ year | In the next few days/ weeks! ‘months! years... Tm planning to. In the next couple of days! |weeks/ months! years... I'd like/ want to... By the end of the days/ week Imonth/ year... My dream is to.../ My ambition is to... I'm (really) determined to. Thave a real desire to... Lam very optimistic. Thope.../ Hopefully I'm confident... 1 feel (quite) sure about... [think/I don’t think! I belicve/ 1 lassume/ guess) suppose... ‘There is a good’ a 50-50/ ireasonable chance that... ‘There is a little/ not much |chance that... Itis probable/ likely/ unlikely that... | prediet/anticipate...will lead ito/ result in. 1 foresee/ I can’t foresee any problems I strongly suspect this will. From what I’ve heard/read, it lseems... This will undoubtedly/ certainly/' \definitely lead t This will probably/ possibly lead he This would/might lead to... OPINIONS. Tthink ‘To my mind From my point of view Personally I think I (firmly) believe In my view In my experience T would say To the best of my knowledge In my 0 It seems to me/ the way I see it... ‘As far as I'm concerned As far as I can sce For my money (Infra) ‘What I think is this... Td like to point out... Iisa good idea to... OPINIONS (PASSIVE STRUCTURP) Itis said that It is believed that... Itis thought that... Itis expected that... It is considered... It is known that... Itis reported that.. Itis understood. Itis alleged that...Part2 29 [ TOTAL AGREEMENT Exactly Absolutely Tagree entirely (totally/completely/quite) agree) Tcouldn’t agree more (1 \completely agree) So do/did/can....1 Neither do/did/ean... 1 I feel the same way ‘That's just what I was thinking min favour of... I think it’s @ good idea Ibecause... I go along with the idea that.../ lwith your view that... Tcouldn’t agree more I think it’s justifiable in some iways. I share your opinion that/ on the lissue of... PARTIAL AGREEMENT ‘agree on the whole Tagree up to a point... ‘That’s quite right, but.. agree to some extent. Well, you have a point there, but... Hmm, Possibly, but... DISAGREEMENT ‘Um... actually think I don’t agree/disagree I don’t think so tend to disagree I'm completely against it [because, I’m not at all in favour of it. [Vin completely opposed ty nat Fm inclined disagree with ithat Pun afiaid. 1 don’t go along with Ithis idea [Im afraid 1 don’t share the inion Not necessarily ‘That doesn’t necessarily follow/ happen... You may have a point. ertheless, [ think... I'm not sure that it works like that That's highly unlikely There is no justification for... Pm afraid, | don’t think there is fa link between... .and. I would not say that | don't aliogether agree with you! T'm bound to say I disagree with lyou on this point ‘That's not possible SOLUTIONS |...10/ in order to address, deal ith, tackle, handle this issue = .t0/ in order to improve, \develop, expand, increase ... [There are three things to consider \First of all...Next... Finally... best alternative/ solution/ itiative (would be/ is to...) The best measure/ policy/ way/ strategy (would be! isto...) One thing to do about it is to...