An Adaptive Study On The Discourse Markers In Turn-Taking

Discourse markers, which are widely used in daily communication, exist in most languages and play an irreplaceable role in the success of communication. They are outside the syntactic structure, but they count a lot from the pragmatic angle. Turn-taking is the basic unit in conversation where discourse markers exist. Now the studies on discourse markers and turns are increasing, and developing into an interdisciplinary research. This shows that the studies on discourse markers and turn-taking are of considerable theoretical significance and practical value. But it is a pity that the systematic studies on Chinese discourse markers in turn-taking are insufficient. In light of this, the thesis is devoted to discussing Chinese discourse markers systematically from the angles of turn-taking, turn-holding, and turn-yielding.This thesis adopts Adaptation Theory to analyze discourse markers in turn-taking. Adaptation Theory can not only describe and explain the use of discourse markers, but also take into consideration the social and cultural factors that exert great influence upon the use of discourse markers. The corpus of this thesis is extracted from the TV talk show Xiao Cui Says This, which has won great popularity for its diverse topics, a wide range of guests, and amicable atmosphere. Within the framework of Adaptation Theory, this thesis analyzes discourse markers in this program. The use of discourse markers is in fact a process of linguistic choice-making and adaptation. And it is the three properties of language that make it possible for communicators to make choices. The contexts to which the use of discourse markers has to adapt embrace linguistic context and communicative context. The linguistic context refers to text coherence, and the communicative context includes physical world, mental world, and social world. And in this dynamic adaptive process, communicators’metapragmatic awareness plays a vital role.This thesis will help us properly interpret discourse markers and enhance our ability to use them, which is of vital importance in the successful communication.