Pragmatic Functions Of Reformulation Markers In Chinese Courtroom Interaction

In this paper, the author uses Sperber and Wilson’ Relevance Theory as the theoretical framework and discusses the pragmatical functions of reformulation markers in courtroom trial through analyzing the corpus that the author collected and transcribed from four cases about criminal and civil trial in Chinese courtroom.The first part, the author introduces the research background, research purpose, research method, research corpus and the research framework. The second part, the author reviews the researches of discourse marker and reformulation markers aboard and at home. The third part, the author introduces the theoretical framework in this paper, namely The Relevance Theory. The author mainly introduces the ostensive-inferential model, principle of relevant and context and contextual effects. The forth part is the mainbody, the author firstly analyzes the three kinds of logical relationships of reformulation markers, namely similar relationship, switch relationship, definition relationship. Based on this, the author elaborates the two kinds of pragmatical functions of reformulation markers: the textual function and interpersonal function. The textual function can be classified into two categories, namely continuing the topic and restricting the topic. The interpersonal function can be divided into four categories, namely strengthening power, manifesting the intention, mitigating the face threatening and inferring the implication. In the fifth part, the author concludes the major findings and the limitations of the whole research, and proposes some suggestions for the further study. There are three main research questions in this paper: 1 Is The Relevance Theory rational to explain and analyze the pragmatic functions of reformulation markers in courtroom interaction? 2 What are pragmatical functions of reformulation markers in courtroom interaction? 3 What are the intentions of user of reformulation markers in courtroom interaction? The author gets the following findings by analyzing the authentic corpus: 1: We can explain and analyze the pragmatical functions by using the relevance theory with its cognitive environment and its ostensive viewpoint. 2: There are two categories of pragmatical functions of reformulation markers in courtroom interaction. The first one is textual function: continuing the topic and restricting the topic; the second one is interpersonal function: strengthen power; manifest the intention; mitigate the face threatening; infer the implication. 3: There is a close relationship between the intention of reformulation markers and the user of S1 and S2. The reformulation marker presents the ostensive function while the S1 and S2 are from the same user; the reformulation marker presents the inferring function while the S1 and S2 are not from the same user.