An Adaptation Theoretic Approach To The Functions Of Discourse Markers

Discourse markers are a group of lexical expressions drawn from the classes of conjunctions, adverbials, prepositional phrases and other syntactic categories, which, signal a relationship between the utterance they introduce and the preceding utterance, when taken away, do not affect the semantic meaning or propositional content of the utterances to which they are attached but do affect the pragmatic appropriateness. The use of discourse markers is a universal language phenomenon that can be found in most languages. Therefore, the present research on it is of theoretical and practical importance.Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory has the potential to provide a fruitful explanation for why discourse markers are used and how they function in utterance production from a cognitive, social and cultural perspective. Based on Verschueren's theory of linguistic adaptation, a few scholars give further explanation to discourse markers from different angles. However, their study only touch on some aspects of discourse markers, and fail to make a comprehensive account for discourse markers within the overall theory of linguistic adaptation.The present study adopts the linguistic adaptation theory as the framework, tentatively providing a detailed and systematic analysis to the functions of discourse markers in communication. The use of discourse markers is in fact an adapting process and a linguistic strategy that can be exploited by the language users to achieve their specific communicative goals. Therefore, this study encompasses three constituents: The variability, the negotiability and the adaptability of the use of discourse markers. The variability of the use of discourse markers is manifested mainly on the lexical level. The negotiability of the use of discourse markers demonstrates that the use of discourse markers is a dynamic process and all the choices are made according to highly flexible principles instead of fixed form-function relationship. As to the adaptability of the use of discourse markers, we hold that the real reason why communicators choose one specific discourse marker in communication instead of the others lies in the intention of approaching their specific communicative goals. Once communicators are engaged in communication, they must bear certain purposes in mind. To realize these goals, they have to adopt certain linguistic strategies, with the use of discourse markers as an important one.The objects to which the communicator's use of discourse markers adapts can be divided into three categories: linguistic context, social conventions and psychological motivations. The first one belongs to language-internal reasons, while the other two are attributed to language-external reasons. Furthermore, various pragmatic functions that the communicator's strategic use of discourse markers perform in the adapting process are analyzed in detail.Having analyzed the adapting process of the use of discourse markers in communication, we move on to the discussion of metapragmatic awareness, which is shown in our analysis to play an important role in guiding, regulating and supervising the whole dynamic process of the communicator's use of discourse markers. The analysis of the functioning of metapragmatic awareness in the use of discourse markers strengthens Verschueren's view that metapragmatic awareness and its linguistic manifestations contribute crucial to the generation and negotiation of meaning.Through analyzing the functions of discourse markers in the adapting process, we may come to the conclusion that the use of discourse markers is an important communicative strategy rather than a mere linguistic phenomenon. It can be exploited under certain conditions as an effective way for the language users to approach their communicative goals.