A Study Of The Discourse Marker Actually In English Majors’ Group Discussions

This study is aimed at exploring the general state of using actually as a discourse marker by English majors in English group discussions. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approach is adopted to analyze the data which are collected from the English group discussions participated by twelve junior English majors from a university of foreign languages. Generally speaking, this research was done from three aspects:syntactic position, collocation, and pragmatic functions in the two contexts, conflict talks and non-conflict talks. The author tried to answer four research questions:(1) how English majors use the discourse marker actually in the context of conflict talks;(2) how English majors use the discourse marker actually in non-conflict talks;(3) whether there is difference in the use of actually in the two contexts, and if so, what the difference(s) is/are;(4) compared with native speakers, whether there is any difference, if so, what the difference(s) is/are in using the discourse marker actually between the two groups.The research results showed that English majors preferred to use actually in the initial position and collocate actually with other discourse markers, such as but, well, while, etc., to realize the pragmatic functions including elaboration, face-threatening mitigation, contemplative filler, strengthener, topic shift and correction. Differences in terms of the use of actually in the two contexts had been discovered that:firstly, in the context of non-conflict talks, actually had been found in the initial, medial and final positions, whereas, in the context of conflict talks, actually had been found in the initial and medial positions; secondly, the majority of the occurrences of actually collocated with but in the initial position to elaborate. Whereas, in the context of non-conflict talks, the majority of occurrences of actually was used without collocation in the medial position to elaborate; thirdly, two extra functions(correction and strengthener) had been found in the context of non-conflict talks compared with that in conflict talks. As for the differences between English majors and native speakers, it was found that English majors tended to use actually initially and collocated with but to elaborate his/her opinions. However, English native speakers tended to use actually medially and collocated actually with well to show the unexpectedness.The present research may contribute to the learning and teaching of spoken English and the study of discourse markers. Also, it is beneficial for the compilation of English textbooks, exercises books, and the translation of English works. What’s more, this research is contributory to the study of group discussions.