A Study Of Pragmatic Markers From The Perspective Of Epistemic Vigilance

Pragmatic markers are expressions occurring highly frequently in verbal communication.They are an interesting linguistic phenomenon which is worth academic attention.In spite of the rich literature,their pragmatic functions haven’t been done justice,leaving much room for further exploration.Especially their working mechanism has received only scan attention.Under the framework of relevance theory and based on the data of the TV interview program Situation,the present study aims to explore the communicative function of pragmatic markers.The research questions to be addressed are:(1)What role do pragmatic markers play in communication?(2)How do pragmatic markers bear on the hearer’s epistemic vigilance in order to fulfill communication?The present study defines pragmatic markers as “those linguistic expressions used by the speaker to manipulate the hearer’s cognitive context in order to disarm or weaken the hearer’s epistemic vigilance” and classifies them into evidential markers,commentary markers,performative markers and discourse markers.Within the relevance-theoretical framework,the present study offers the following account of pragmatic markers and their working mechanism:(i)During communication,the hearer does not accept passively every piece of information given by the speaker,rather,he will activate his epistemic vigilance to assess the believability of the communicated information and/or the trustworthiness of the source of information;(ii)Under such circumstances,the speaker must use pragmatic markers which,by highlighting the evidentiality,logicality,etc.of the utterances,manipulate the hearer’s cognitive context and his expectation of optimal relevance and disarm or weaken the hearer’s epistemic vigilance;(iii)The speaker’s pragmatic manipulation on the hearer helps the hearer to make appropriate context selection and adjust his expectation of optimal relevance which,in turn,lead to his derivation of the optimally relevant interpretation intended by the speaker and to an increased believability of the content of the utterance.