Bruce Fraser

Professor of Education
BEE, Cornell University; PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor Fraser joined the School of Education faculty in 1971 after directing the Language Research Foundation in Cambridge for four years. His linguistic interests lie primarily in the areas of semantics and pragmatics, where his writing includes work on politeness, idioms, innuendo, speech acts, apologizing, and threatening. Most recently, his work has focused on the area of discourse markers (e.g., but, however, so, then, furthermore, and), connectors of discourse which typically signal a relationship between two adjacent segments. In a series of papers beginning in 1990, he has set forth a theory of discourse markers, which defines this functional class and distinguishes them from other particles and similar lexical formatives, and is currently writing a book on the sub-class of contrastive discourse markers (e.g., but, however, nevertheless, on the contrary, instead…). His interests also lie in the area of dispute resolution, and he serves as an arbitrator and mediator for labor, community, and school disputes. In addition, he conducts training programs in the U.S. and overseas to assist groups to become better prepared to resolve their own disputes.