A Study On Illocutionary Acts Of Fillers With Meaning From The Perspective Of Cognitive Context

Discourse markers (hereafter, DMs), the common linguistic phenomena, are so pervasively applied in verbal communication that not only exert great influence upon utterance construction and interpretation, but also constrain and guide the direction of communication. Cognitive context, a psychological construct, is constrained and guided by the employment of DMs in verbal communications. Speech act theory holds that'words with which to do things', thus, people are performing certain illocutionary acts when they are employing DMs in verbal communications. In short, making a linguistic research on illocutionary acts of DMs is correlated with cognitive context.Based on the existing investigations in the DMs, the thesis first attempts to provide an overview of different major approaches to DMs at home and abroad. On the basis of a general description into divergent approaches to DMs, the author of the thesis finds that none of them provides a fruitful and comprehensive description from the perspective of the speaker and the hearer simultaneously, that is the perspective of utterance production and interpretation. The present study tentatively having adopted the key concepts, research methods and findings of Sperber and Wilson's cognitive context as well as John Austin's speech act theory as research foundations, the dynamics and psychological construct of cognitive context as the starting point, lays emphasis on exploring cognitive contextual assumptions as well as illocutionary forces of filler-type markers with meaning (also called fillers with meaning) in verbal communication from the perspectives of utterance production and interpretation. This thesis aims to answer the following three questions: (1) What are the general characteristics of fillers with meaning identified in Listen to This:2--Teacher's Book? (2) According to filler-type markers with meaning having performative verbs or not, how to classify them? Based on this classification, how to make a sub-classification in terms of pragmatic functions they perform? (3) What cognitive contextual assumptions as well as illocutionary acts do each variety of fillers with meaning perform in utterance production and interpretation based on Listen to This:2--Teacher's Book?This study is based on complete and closed sub-corpus in which all data are collected from the conversational portion of the corpus Listen to This: 2—Teacher's Book. The sub-corpus comprises 72 conversations from diverse themes, consisting of about 43121 words. Quantitative and qualitative researches are combined in this study. The present study firstly makes a quantitative analysis on all the DMs by means of quantity, variety and frequency. The author draws a conclusion that filler-type markers with meaning are the most representative discourse markers. Besides, according to fillers with meaning having performative verbs or not, fillers with meaning identified in this sub-corpus are classified into two types: fillers with verbs"and fillers without verbs. Based on the above classification, the present study makes a tentative sub-classification into seven sub-types in terms of pragmatic functions they perform. Through the relationship formed by the pragmatic functions of DMs and the dynamics of cognitive context, the present study investigates what illocutionary acts do each variety of fillers with meaning perform in utterance production and interpretation, from the perspective of cognitive context. The study shows that fillers with meaning not only express their own meanings, but also express the language users'attitudes, opinions, beliefs and so on, towards the communicative content under various contextual assumptions. The present study also shows that the employment of fillers with meaning not only helps the speaker construct relevant utterances, but also helps the hearer recognize the communicative intention. To sum up, the employment of fillers with meaning indicates the relationships among language users, communicative content as well as cognitive context.The present study aims to strengthen interpreting powers in terms of filler-type markers in verbal communication, instruct and guide the speaker and the hearer to choose the appropriate fillers with meaning in utterance production and interpretation. The present study has the potential to provide a comprehensive and thorough account for DMs with a view to reveal some findings and implications of the studies on filler-type markers with meaning, shedding light on further research for the teaching and learning of English and even Chinese. The present study is composed of six parts. Apart from the first chapter introduction and the last chapter conclusions, it comprises another four parts. Chapter two is literature review, an overview of DMs on major approaches, definitions and classification at home and abroad. Chapter three is theoretical foundations. The present study presents an overview of cognitive context and speech act theory, and an illustration of their interpretations on DMs. Chapter four is methodology, which introduces corpus building, data collection and data analysis. Chapter five is results and discussion, which explores cognitive contextual assumptions as well as illocutionary acts of each type of fillers with meaning, based on the seven tentative classifications of fillers with meaning.