Pragmatic Functions Of Discourse Marker "So" Based On Relevance-Adaptation Model

The employment of discourse markers is a common phenomenon in the process of oral communication.Although discourse markers do not refer to specific things and do not act as any components in sentences in the linguistic field,they play an important role in our daily interaction.The use of discourse markers could promote to communicate effectively and to achieve communicative purposes."So" indicates a causal relation in grammar,but "so" could act as a discourse marker with different pragmatic functions in oral communication.According to relevance-adaptation theory,communication is an inter-adaptation process,which consists of language production and language interpretation and needs mutual effort of both interlocutors so as to achieve successful communication.On the basis of relevance-adaptation theory,this thesis discusses the frequency of discourse marker "so" in CNN interviews;and analyzes the pragmatic functions of it and its different positions due to different functions.This thesis adopts qualitative method and quantitative method to analyze and gets the following findings:the frequency of using discourse marker "so" and non-discourse marker"so is similar;discourse marker "so" performs as topic-shifting marker,topic-forward marker,blank-filling marker and so on;the position of discourse marker "so" is not fixed when people use it.The research findings have some implications on English learning and teaching.During the classes,some elaborated communicative situations for students could also include some exercises of discourse markers.For English learning,the learner should cultivate the sense and ability to recognize and use discourse markers.For English teaching,the teacher should flexibly apply the tactics of using discourse markers to classes so as to achieve better teaching effects and receive better teaching feedback.