摘要
Discourse markers have been studied within the relevance theoretical framework in this paper. According to relevance theory, every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance. The communicator, who is aiming at optimal relevance, must direct the audience to a particular set of assumptions by using discourse markers. Whereas, from the audience＇s point of view, discourse markers can minimize his contextual assumptions in looking for relevance, thus the pragmatic inferential process will be much easier.
