A Pragmatic Analysis Of The High-frequency Discourse Markers In CNN Talk Asia

Discourse markers commonly exist in many languages. They are used in human communications all the time. The good application of discourse markers is not only helpful for the smooth communication, but also good for the contextual coherence. Linguists, especially many pragmatists have been studying the discourse markers since1980s. After the publication of Schifrin’s Discourse Markers, discourse markers have attracted many scholars’ attention. Linguists agree that discourse markers mainly appear in the conversation and have some pragmatic functions. The author finds that discourse markers are also commonly used in TV interview shows.The author chooses CNN Talk Asia as the study material and adopts qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the pragmatic functions of five high-frequency discourse markers in this thesis. The purpose of the study is to reveal the features of discourse markers when being used in communications. This thesis analyzes the pragmatic functions of discourse markers and the discourse markers which are often used by the hostess and guests. The author expects that the study can be helpful for Chinese students who learn this kind of language phenomenon, and expand the study area of discourse markers, too.