The Study Of Discourse Markers From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Discourse markers (here after DMs) frequently appear in our daily communication, which attracts a lot of linguists. There are multiple researches on DMs from different perspectives, resulting from the complexity of classification and the diversity of definitions. The use of DMs is not only a language phenomenon, but also a communicative strategy. Whether the DMs can be properly used and interpreted implies the language user's pragmatic competence. Therefore, the present thesis is going to analyze the use of DMs from the pragmatic perspective.Jef Verschueren (1999) studies linguistic communication pragmatically and meanwhile proposes Linguistic Adaptation Theory. He believes that language has three properties: variability, negotiability and adaptability. And using language consists of the continuous making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for language-internal and/or language-external reasons. The use of DMs can be seen as a process of linguistic adaptation. Therefore, DMs have the properties of variability, negotiability and adaptability. Based on Jef Verschueren (1999)'s linguistic adaptation theory, by qualitatively analyzing the data from the American sitcom Friends, the present study aims to further interpret the adaptation process of DMs in oral communication and their functions. With the hopes that it can contribute to the future studies.Using DMs reflects the language users'metapragmatic awareness, and can't be divided from the communicative context where it happens. According to the data, the present thesis firstly analyzes the DMs from three aspects: 1. the adaptation to the psychological world, 2. the adaptation to the social world, 3. the adaptation to the physical world. Then it presents the various functions of DMs. After the analysis, it is found that using DMs is not only a language phenomenon in the adaptation process, but also an important communicative strategy under specific circumstances.