Traditionally, translations of Native American myths were written in paragraph form with little attention to structure and a tendency to ignore discourse markers, which were seen as repetitious and distracting because of their frequency of occurrence. The discourse markers are, however, essential to the rhetorical structure of each myth. As chiefly structuring devices, they function to establish time frames, to relate narrative events, to add meaning and poetic quality. They are an integral part of the patterning numbers, two and four, found in Siouan myths, and as such, they help to conceptualize the myth along with the other components of rhetorical structure, the prosodic and the syntactic.

In this presentation, the author will show how the most frequently occurring of the seven discourse particles in Hochunk, zheegú, "well, then, yet," and the most frequent of the seven in Dakota, ungkang "and, well," play a vital role in the rhetorical structure. In the initial-sentence slot, these discourse markers act to control the narrative flow in several, specific ways. The most frequent use of zheegú and unkang is to mark connection in the grouping of events, both within a sentence and within the text. They are also used as markers of emphasis, as a signal to note that which follows. As such, by eliminating them from translations, we are not only changing the structure, but losing the very essence of how Siouan myths are meant to be heard. Retaining the discourse markers in Siouan language myth translations is crucial to the artistry and meaning of the myths.