The Prototypic Analysis Of The Choice Of Discourse Markers By Chinese English Learners

Sincepsychologist Rosch(1975)advocatedprototypetheoryandbasiclevel category,it has been applied in the research on semantics, grammar, pragmatics and languageacquisition, etc.. Cognitive linguists Hatch and Brown (1995) have done research onlanguage acquisition usingprototype theory. Their claims, which are to be used in theanalysisofthepaper,areasfollows:1) Items judged to be typical members of a concept can be categorized more efficientlythanatypicalones.2)Typicalmembersarelearnedfirstbychildren.3) Prototypes are named first when subjects are asked to give examples of members of aconcept.4)Prototypesserveascognitivereferencepoints.Different scholars gave different definitions and classifications of discourse markers,according to their different research emphasis and perspectives. By observingdifferent research, we find that few people have ever analyzed discourse markersthrough comparison between Chinese and English, nor have many people explainedthe reasons for the use tendency of learners of English; or if different culturalbackgrounds lead to the different uses of discourse markers; or if there are differentlearningratesamonglearnersofdifferentEnglishproficiency.The research in the paper is based on the twenty discourse markers of contrastcollected by Tan Xiaochen (2001). It analyzes their uses by Chinese learners ofEnglish with prototype theory so that the questions which cannot be answered bysemantics-pragmatics and cognition-pragmatics studies can be answered. The paperconsistsof4chapters.Chapter one is a literature review of prototype theory and discourse markers theory.Having been studied by Aristotle( 1933 ), Wittgenstein( 1945 ), Max Black( 1949 ),Berlin & Kay ( 1969 ),Labov( 1973 ), Lakoff( 1973 ), Rosch ( 1975 ) etc., prototypetheory is confirmed and has been applied in semantic, grammar, pragmatics andlanguage acquisition research, which are either static or dynamic. Chapter two isresearch design and data collection. The writer discusses the using and learningsituations of discourse markers of contrast by Chinese learners of English. Threehypothesesareproposed:a)Prototypicmembersexistinthecategoryofdiscoursemarkersofcontrast.b) Mother tongue creates certain effects on the acquisition of discourse markers in the targetlanguage.