Literature Review of Discourse Marker

This paper is devoted to supplying theoretical foundation for discourse markers(DMs),introducing the relevant definitions as well as the previous classifications of DMs.The functions of discourse markers are also added so as to provide a deep insight into the study.

The Analysis of Discourse Marker and its function in Listening Comprehension of CET-6

This paper focuses on the analysis of long conversations,which is the newly added question type after the CET innovation.By analyzing similarity and difference of markers and functions in short and long conversations,the characteristics of long conversations can be further illustrated.More attention should be paid to discourse markers when practicing long conversations so as to grasp the main idea of dialogue.And this paper also provides inspiration for CET teaching and learning.

Functions of Discourse Markers

Discourse markers are pervasive in conversation, generally used to facilitate human communication. With respect to different contextual effects that discourse markers have in utterance interpretation, they may function subjectively, interactionally or textually.

Discourse Marker Na(那)as an Interpersonal-Level Compensatory Strategy in Clinical Interviews

Discourse markers(DMs) are characterized by multifunctionality in different contexts.This study addressed the use of the Chinese DM,na(那),as a solution to topical divergence,during clinical interactions with right-hemisphere-damaged(RHD) patients.Drawing on data collected from clinical interviews between psychotherapists and RHD patients,this study examined the functions of na in response to RHD topical divergence,focusing on the topic and attitudinal aspects.It was found that na was mainly employed by psychotherapists to mark a reproffer of interview topics(i.e.,an attempt to return to earlier topics),and a display of disalignment and disaffiliation with RHD topical divergence.These functions of na reflect the psychotherapists’ attempts to overcome communicative problems arising from RHD topical divergence,so as to ensure the achievement of the communicative goal.Thus,na can be interpreted as a compensatory strategy for dealing with RHD topical divergence on an interpersonal level.These findings not only expand our knowledge about the function spectrum of na,but also offer insights for RHD patients’ interlocutors to enhance conversational communication with RHD patients via the compensatory strategy.

The Role of Discourse Markers in Making the CET-6 Listening Materials Understandable to Chinese Students

Due to the increasing importance of English language,China has introduced various English competence tests to assessstudents' English language performance as well as to motivate them to learn this language.Based on the analysis of a corpus com-prised of ten CET-6(College English Test,Band 6) listening tests(transcripts and test papers),this study aims to examine the ef-fects of discourse markers(DMs) in the listening comprehension test in CET-6,thus providing effective listening strategies for stu-dents and also offering pedagogical suggestions for teachers.The findings indicate that understanding the use of DMs is highly relat-ed to better listening comprehension in the tests.This study suggests that both students and teachers should raise their awarenessof DMs' cognitive effects,and also,teachers need to adopt a communicative language teaching method to help students grasp themeaning and usage of DMs.

Discourse Markers and Pragmatic Inference

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.

A review of domestic studies on discourse markers

Based on the investigation of domestic studies on Discourse Markers （DMs）, this paper summarizes the major researches in this research field, analyzes the present research condition and predicts some future research topics.

Pragmatic Functions of Discourse Marker I mean—a case study

The present study examines the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker I mean based on a case study of an American soap opera Desperate Housewives.Four pragmatic functions of I mean are detected and discussed.Among them,two functions are more frequently used including supplementary and explanatory function,reminding and emphasizing function.

Teaching Fillers,Discourse Markers and Adjacency Pairs to College Students

Speaking has long been underestimated in College English education,compared with reading,writing and listening.Even In universities where spoken courses are provided,verbal filler and discourse markers which vastly exist in native speaker'scorpora are rarely found in these prescribed spoken course books.For the teaching of adjacency pairs,which are always one ofthe focuses in teaching conversation skills in College English spoken program,students are required to make up a new one basedon the given scenario after they have memorized model dialogues.Unfortunately,students always experience pragmatic difficultywhen they interact with people in the real world if they are guided by this approach.This article suggests a triangle which is com-posed of exposure,instruction and practice to teach verbal filler,discourse markers and adjacency pairs.This triangle combinesboth direct approach and indirect approach.Furthermore,in spoken program,English teachers can adapt spoken course books tointegrate features of authentic conversations.

The Functions of Discourse Markers in Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting

The term “discourse markers”(DMs in short) was raised in the 1970s and 1980s. Fraser, a linguist, believes DMs have no truth-conditional meaning which means DMs do not change the prepositional meaning of the sentence. He classifies DMs into three categories: discourse topic markers, discourse activity markers, and message relationship markers. It can be concluded that in conference interpreting, DMs explicit internal structures in three aspects: parallel relation, contractive relation, and elaborative relation based on the analysis of DMs in rendition of Premier Li Keqiang’s press conference from 2014 to 2017.

Discourse Markers of “Saying”:A Comparative Study

The present study compares the discourse markers(DMs) of “saying” in Mandarin Chinese ke yi shuo(lit.“can say”) and ying gai shuo(lit.“should say”) with their equivalents in English,by drawing the parallel corpora from The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping(Volume III)(henceforth The Works),so as to uncover the pragmatic motivation for the variation in translating the DMs of“saying.” The analysis is conducted within a theoretical framework of speech act theory,by grouping the DMs according to their personal pronouns.Moreover,by comparing the uses of personal pronouns in English and Chinese,the current study confirms that The Works keeps the consistency between the two languages as well as with the characteristics and styles of Deng Xiaoping’s locution.It also finds that modalized DMs of “saying”(e.g.,“I should say”),as a parenthesis,lose their status as matrix clauses and help reduce the tone of affirmation.

A Mini Study of Discourse Markers and Age in Spontaneous English Conversations

This is a mini study of the variation of the use of discourse markers by the age dimension.The study finds salient differences in the choice and frequency of use of discourse markers between elder and younger native American English speakers.Younger and female speakers have a more extensive choice of tokens and use them much more frequently.EFL learners should adopt more discourse markers in target language interaction,as it could be a sign of fluency.

A Corpus-Based Study of the Discourse Marker“Well”and Its Pragmatic Functions in L2 Learners’Dialogues

This paper focuses on the pragmatic function of the discourse marker“well”in conversational interaction of second language learners.Based on the corpus,we divide the pragmatic functions of“well”into four levels:content level,structural level,interpersonal level,and without level(interlanguage marker).This will help us understand the use of markers,such as“well”in interlanguage and provide references for improving the pragmatic competence of second language learners.

Errors in the Subtitling of Discourse Markers From English Into Arabic

This study aims at investigating errors which occur in the subtitling of discourse markers from English into Arabic in the subtitles of two movies,Wonder and Seven.Specifically,this study investigates the subtitling of five discourse markers,namely,well,yeah,you know,so,and oh by two movie websites,Netflix and Egybest.The findings reveal that two major errors occurred in the subtitles of the two movies,which are omission and wrong equivalence.The findings also show that omission occurred more frequently than wrong equivalence when subtitling these five discourse markers from English into Arabic.

A Pragmatic Account of the Discourse Marker Look in the Big Bang Theory

This study focuses on analyzing the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker look in casual conversations.Through the anal-ysis of the collected data from the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory(season eight),it is found that look can act respectively as(1) astart marker of a new topic or a topic shift marker,(2) a coherence marker,(3) a repair marker in different contexts,(4) an emotionalmarker,and(5) a mitigator of face-threatening acts.These functions show that although look as a discourse marker is just a single word,it can improve the way of communicating in the conversation and help speakers express more than what they say.

Research on Discourse Markers from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

Discourse markers are a common discourse phenomenon that is now widely used in spoken and written language.For the study of discourse markers,all major schools have their own characteristics and advantages.The unique understanding of the cogni?tive characteristics and process of human communicative activities fully demonstrates the rationale for the existence of discourse markers.The pragmatic role of discourse markers in the process of discourse generation and discourse comprehension points out a new direction for the study of discourse markers.This paper draws on the relevant viewpoints of relevance theory and attempts to explore the discourse markers to illustrate that the unique interpretation of the discourse markers of relevance theory has broad ap?plication prospects.

On Pragmatic Functions of Discourse Marker I mean

Discourse markers are among the basic building blocks of spoken language.This study gauges the use of the discourse marker I mean in spoken English,specifically in the talk show setting,with the aim of providing a comprehensive description of the pragmatic functions of I mean.After extracting large quantities of extended conversations from various talk shows,a corpus for fur⁃ther extensive discourse analysis will then be established.Our small-scale yet fine-grained study proposes that the core functions of I mean includes reformulation,elaboration,lexical search and interpersonal management.The wide use of discourse markers in TV talk shows serves to promote the logic and organization of interviewing language as well as the overall discourse setting whereby the talk shows proceed smoothly with the interlocutors’dynamic devotion into conversation.

Hedging in Discourse Analysis

In this article an attempt to enhance the awareness of hedging use in discourse analysis and academic writing is madeby analyzing hedges employed in two comparable texts.The discourse analysis is conducted from"content-oriented"hedges and"reader-oriented"hedges.The article suggests that hedging can dampen utterances and statements,weaken the force of what onesays and show politeness to the listeners or readers,which varies from different discourse styles of various genres.discourse marker;hedging;research article;news

A Comparative Study on the Meta-functions of Artificial Intelligence and Human Discourse Markers

This study explores the use of discourse markers in AI-generated and human-generated texts, based on Halliday’s metafunctional theory. By analyzing 20 Shanghai college entrance exam essays generated by Baidu’s AI model Wenxinyiyan and comparing them with 20 human-written essays, it is found that both share similar use of discourse markers. However, AI tends to use transitional and topic-follow-up markers more frequently, while human texts show a higher usage of conditional and causal markers. These findings suggest AI’s capacity for maintaining discourse coherence but highlight its limitations in more complex reasoning.

英语话语标记语的属性、功能与翻译

话语标记语是言语交际中一种常见的语言现象,国内外学者从连贯理论等不同视角对其功能进行了诸多有益的探索。话语标记语作为独立的言语成分,与相邻句法成分不存在依存关系,其本身不表达任何实际语义,通常不影响语篇的命题意义,但它会影响会话的含义,帮助言者实现其交际意图。从话语标记语概念的界定切入、结合实例分析话语标记语的本质特征及英汉话语标记语编码方式的差异,探讨英语话语标记语的属性、功能与翻译,认为话语标记语的主要功能是语篇功能和语用功能,它的理解和翻译取决于具体的语境。