ABSTRACT. Pois: discursive and interactional properties of a Portuguese discourse marker translated into Italian. In this paper we intend to present the study of the Portuguese discursive marker pois to emphasise the various discursive and interactional possibilities. This discursive connector is included by Lopes e Carrilho (2020) among the explanatory discursive markers: the lexical element takes the form of an operator with anaphoric value that proposes the part of discourse that follows it as an explanation of the part of discourse that precedes it. Part of this semantic value is also found in the pois with an interactional function of response. This phenomenon could be explained by considering the process of semantic drift that sees the expansion of the discursive space of use of a lexical element. To present the various areas of use of the discursive marker pois, written and oral language data will be examined. In addition, a contrastive analysis with Italian will be proposed based on the possible translations that this discourse marker can have in this language in order to broaden the contrastive studies between the two Romance languages.

Keywords: discourse markers; Portuguese, Italian; pois; linguistic interaction.