This paper reports on an investigation of the functions of the English causal discourse markers ‘because’ and ‘so’ and their Lithuanian counterparts and analyses the Lithuanian translation equivalents of these discourse markers using the multilingual open translation project TED Talks as a data resource. The results revealed that the discourse marker ‘because’ and its Lithuanian counterparts express ideational cause, followed by its rhetorical equivalent. However, the discourse marker ‘so’ and its Lithuanian counterparts express rhetorical consequences, followed by the rhetorical specification.

The newest research has proved the importance of discourse for second language learning and teaching at more advanced levels. TED-MDB multilingual discourse-annotated corpus, created within the framework of TextLink, COST action IS1312, appears to be a handy tool for illuminating qualitative differences between the first and the second language discourse marker use. The current research focuses on the pragmatic use of English discourse marker and with its Lithuanian counterpart ir paying attention to the cases when the connectives and/ir perform different functions, e. g., discourse structuring, etc. It was established by the research that the use and translation of the connectives vary. They may be translated by the discourse markers provided by dictionaries, or might be transferred into a different discourse marker or are simply omitted. The research leads to a conclusion that language learners and teachers may use the corpus resources for raising linguistic awareness about the pragmatic use of discourse markers.