This paper examines the functions of parenthetical structures in an English newspaper entitled ''Financial Times''. The analysis of parenthetical structures as discourse constituents shows that grammatically, they are peripheral, semantically, they are non-truth conditional, i.e. they do not contribute to the propositions of the host sentence. From a pragmatic point of view, they are multifunctional units which signal the textual as well as the interpersonal functions of language. Thus, it is argued here that such expressions cannot be analysed in sentence grammar because they are sensitive to contextual factors rather than grammatical structures. It is only in the framework of pragmatics as a ''perspective'' that such phenomenon can be safely handled ( e.g. Verschueren 1998 ). It is also argued that the separation of parenthetical structures by graphic or punctuation marks serves further to emphasis that they are highly motivated pragmatic phenomena.