A Study Of Pragmatic Functions Of Teachers’ Use Of Discourse Markers In High School From Relevance-theoretic Perspective

Teaching discourses are the soul of the English classes, and teachers’ discourse markers(henceforth DMs for short) are an important constituent of teaching discourses. Teachers’ useof DMs not only helps students interpret teachers’ talks, but also influences students’cognition and the use of DMs. Thus the study of teachers’ DMs has become one of the mostimportant research subjects in language teaching.Since the1970s, lots of scholars at home and abroad have studied DMs from differentperspectives and make great achievements. However, teachers’ use of DMs is less studied.The research, based on relevance theory, adopts quantitative and qualitative methods andexplores DMs’ pragmatic functions according to Blakemore’s classification of DMs. Data wascollected from8English teachers in Grade One of Yuncheng High School in Shanxi Province.Through transcribing videos and tapes, three questions will be studied in this paper. Firstly,what are the commonly used DMs by high school English teachers? Secondly, what are thepragmatic functions of DMs in teaching class based on Blakemore’s classification of DMs?Thirdly, are these DMs properly used by teachers and what DMs have negative influence onstudents’ understanding?The study results mainly include the following:First, teachers’ use of DMs in high school is single. The DMs of high frequency used byhigh school English teachers in the classroom are such simple words as ok, and, yes, now, andso.Second, the use of DMs in classroom can help students better understand the teachers’talk. These DMs used by the teachers are mainly classified into three types:(1) DMs introducing the contextual implication;(2) DMs strengthening the existing assumptions of thestudents about the teacher’s previous utterances;(3) DMs contradicting the students’ existingassumption.Third, there are some improper phenomena in teachers’ use of DMs such as overuse ofDMs, misuse of DMs, lack of DMs, and lack of diversity of DMs.Finally, though the findings of the paper are limited, it contributes to the understandingof teachers’ talk in high school classroom.