Discourse Discourse Marker Under Study

Discourse marker, which is a common language phenomenon in daily conversation and written discourses, has aroused the attention of linguists for many years due to its high frequency of appearing in discourse and also its delicate function.This dissertation analyzes the previous study on the terms and definitions of discourse markers, and brings out a working definition both in a broad sense and in a narrow sense for the convenience of present study. After having a look back on the history of studying discourse markers in the academic circle, this dissertation focus its attention on the study of function and classification of discourse markers from the perspective of discourse building. Based on RST and Halliday &Hasan's cohesion theory, a new classification of discourse markers is put forward. We also have a detailed study on the directing and constraining function of discourse markers in discourse building based on the adaptation theory of Verschueren. After the adequate theory analysis of discourse markers, this dissertation has a look at the function and coverage of discourse markers in two specific samples in order to put theory into real discourse analysis so as to let the study on discourse markers guide our understanding of language in an effective way.