The Roles Of Discourse Marker On Courtroom Discourse

Discourse marker, a new subject in discourse analysis and pragmatic study bothat home and abroad, can be frequently found in verbal communication, which exertsunique influence in the generation and comprehension of discourse, includingexpressions like well, oh, anyway, but，however，therefore，besides，still，you know，you see，I mean，that is to say，in other words，as I said and so on. Most of theprevious studies choose daily discourses as the subjects, but they neglect an importantone, namely courtroom discourse.The reason why the author chooses the courtroom discourse as the subject ofstudy is that the current studies on discourse markers are rarely concerned withinstitutional one. Courtroom discourse is one of the most important typicalinstitutional discourses, however, the research of which is still in its infancy, not tospeak of discourse markers in courtroom discourses. The study examines bothlinguistic and social issues, and therefore, will not only contribute to language studiesbut also social practices. Based on Svartvik’s and Jucker’s theory, the thesisreclassifies well into two types, and after analyzing Chinese and American corpus ofcases, the author summarizes the roles of well in courtroom discourses, includingdelaying device, shortage of information, correcting device and so on.Discourse markers are used frequently in court debate, which should be givenenough consideration when we analyze the relationship between the linguistic featuresof courtroom discourse and power. The thesis attempts to provide references forfurther studies and draw scholars’ attention to the function of discourse markers in thecourtroom discourse at the same time.