A Relevance-theoretic Study Of The Discourse Marker But In Shark

Discourse markers have been a hot topic in the field of languageresearch for the past thirty years. The main emphasis of this thesis has beenlaid on the analysis of discourse marker but in the light of relevance theory.This theory stresses the need to regard language as a dynamic, interactivephenomenon. The data on which this analysis based are extracted from thepopular American soap opera Shark (Season 1), which provide us with anatural language about courtroom discourse.The qualitative approach and quantitative approach may serve thepurpose that elucidates the features of but as a discourse marker in thespecific field of courtroom discourse. The scrutiny of but based on thecollected data is the focus of chapter three. But, as a discourse marker, helpshearers achieve optimal relevance and contributes to the global coherence ofthe whole discourse by specifying certain properties of utterance andcontext.This thesis reveals how law professionals achieve their persuasivepurposes through the tactic use of but. It is hoped that the study would sheda light on the similar linguistic studies and the learning of foreign languagesfor Chinese learners.