The current study compared the frequency of occurrence, and the pragmatic functions of Discourse Markers (DMs) in two novels: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale (1985). It relies on Fraser’s (2005) model to investigate the frequencies, and Brinton’s (1996) classification to recognize the DMs’ pragmatic functions. To this purpose, approximately 38 percent of each novel was selected from the initial, middle, and final parts. The corpus contained of 71663 words from Jane Eyre and 37090 words from The Handmaid's Tale. For the first hypotheses of the study, two raters evaluated the frequency of DMs. The results indicated no significant difference between the frequency of DMs used in Jane Eyre and The Handmaid's Tale. In addition, the range of frequencies in both novels were similar to each other (EDMs> CDMs> TDMs> IDMs). For the second hypothesis of the study, two other raters judged the pragmatic functions of DMs. The pragmatic functions observed in both corpora included thirteen functions. The findings showed that eight functions were not used significantly differently in Jane Eyre and The Handmaid’s Tale. However, three functions differed significantly in their uses, and for two functions statistical analysis were not possible to be performed. Additionally, the results of the study can have some pedagogical implications for teaching and learning reading comprehension and literature.
