On Discourse Marker WHY

Discourse markers are sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk (Schiffrin 1987:31). Discourse marker research originated in 1970s, and ever since there has been a wide research interest in this field. This paper totally focuses on the discourse marker why, which has been slighted for some reason. In Chapter One I state my motivation for the research on discourse marker why, the terminological diversity of the term discourse marker, a general survey of the past studies on discourse markers and an analysis of the English word 'why'. Chapter Two is devoted to the analysis of various functions of marker why within Schiffrin's model of coherence. Following this, the discussion of the features of marker why is based on Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory (Chapter Three) and on pragmatic theory (Chapter Four). In Chapter Five, a diachronic quantitative research is made on discourse marker why to prove my view point that marker why has been fading, and then in Chapter Six after exploring into some functions of other discourse markers, a tentative conclusion is drawn that other markers like well, oh, anyway, what and hey have been substituting the occurrence of marker why.