Error Analysis Of The Use Of Discourse Markers In English Writing

Discourse Markers(DMs),a new research focus in pragmatics,have aroused the interest of a wide variety of researchers.Studies of DMs are carried out from different angles.They may fall into two major branches(冉永平,2000):semantic-pragmatic studies and cognitive-pragmatic studies.The first branch focuses on the analysis of pragmatic functions of DMs in language construction and interpretation according to their linguistic properties,whereas the second one in mainly concerned with the revelation of the cognitive-psychological motivations for using DMs in communication on the basis of Relevance Theory.By comparison,the Relevance-based approach provides a more convincing explanation of DMs.Though different researchers hold different opinions on DMs,they share one common idea that DMs contribute to coherent relations in discourse.According to Relevance Theory,discourse coherence is a consequence of the bearer's searching for optimal relevance.And DMs help the hearer search for optimal relevance through casting constraints upon the utterance production and interpretation.From the viewpoint of utterance production,DMs can be used to help the speaker organize information,thus producing clear utterances.That's to say,the speaker will use DMs to produce utterances with different degrees of clarity according to the bearer's utterance processing ability, and ultimately direct the hearer towards the speaker's communicative intention at the cost of minimum processing effort.From the viewpoint of utterance interpretation,DMs exert constraints on the heater's selection of contextual assumptions helping them achieve adequate contextual effects with the least effort and get the optimal relevance, thus achieving coherence.Writing is also a means of communication;it is the communication between writers and readers.(Raimes,1983:1)In China,the college English writing syllabus has been placing stress on coherence all along.Nevertheless,lack of coherence remains an unsolved problem for many Chinese college students.Many non-English majors have problems with using DMs in the process of writing,which directly results in incoherence. Therefore,this thesis probes into the erroneous use of DMs in English writing by Chinese college students within the framework of Relevance Theory. By drawing 100 samples from the compositions by 123.non-English majors of Grade 2005 from Huazhong Normal University as the corpus and applying Relevance Theory as well as the theory of error analysis,this thesis analyzes the erroneous use of DMs in their writing on the basis of Blakemore's classification of DMs.The analysis of the sample compositions offers us evidence for the existence of abundant DMs errors in the students' English writing.Through the analysis,we mainly elaborate four kinds of problems:the misuse,overuse,absence and mechanical use of DMs.Then,a questionnaire is designed and distributed to the students so as to investigate the factors that influence their use of DMs.Based on the results from both the error analysis and questionnaire,causes of the DMs errors are discussed from the perspective of the cogntive factors,the negative transfer of L1.as well as the induced factors.Finally,some tentative strategies for EFL writing teaching are proposed:firstly,arousing the students' awareness of the pragmatic functions of DMs;secondly,making the students understand the functions and usage of DMs in real contexts through reading practice;thirdly, providing the students with as many opportunities as possible to practice DMs so that they will have a solid mastery of their usage.