Exploring the Power of Small Words: Seminar on Discourse Particles in Mro

On October 26, 2025, the Department of English and Humanities and the ULAB English Zone organized a seminar on “Discourse Particles in Mro: A Descriptive Analysis” by Ms. Farhin Rahman Rubaiyath, a recent graduate from the Department of English and Modern Languages, Independent University, Bangladesh.

The seminar began by defining those “small’ words,” the discourse particles, which Ms. Rubaiyath claimed, are often overlooked in linguistics research. Afterwards, she highlighted the role of discourse particles in Mro conversation and gave the participants an overview of the language which is spoken in Bandarban, Bangladesh. Mro is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family. Farhin then shared her research experience beginning with her research questions, methods of data collection, rules of annotating or marking up the text by a specific software, ELAN. She highlighted her key research findings by focusing on syntactic limitations of the placement of a discourse particle, clause-initial transition particles, clause-final question particles and sentence-final softeners. She also discussed how she grouped discourse particles by function and gave examples from her research. Farhin concluded that like all discourse particles in every other language, Mro particles are also unique, and they are crucial when speakers want to shape the meaning of an utterance.

A vibrant Q&A session took place afterwards where enthusiastic participants asked various questions regarding Farhin’s study. Prof. Mahmud Hasan Khan, HoD Ms. Arifa Ghani Rahman, MA Coordinator Ms. Nadia Rahman, and Undergraduate Coordinator Ms Nusrat Tajkia were also present in the session.

The speaker was introduced by Ms. Neha Ghose, Advisor to the English Zone. The seminar was attended by about sixty participants from different courses and disciplines.

Report by A.H.M. Munaimul Azam (243013085)