Pragmatic Study Of Discourse Markers In The U.S. Presidential Debates

Discourse markers have become a new topic in recent years both at home and abroad. Researches study their functions from different aspects. Generally speaking there are three different perspectives, namely, grammatical-pragmatic studies, cognitive-pragmatic studies and coherence-based studies. So far, the definitions and the classifications of discourse markers have failed to reach a consensus, different schools put forward different points of view from different angles.The Linguistic Adaptation Theory is used as a comprehensive framework from a pragmatic perspective. According to Adaptation Theory, language is a continuous process of choice-making, because it has the characteristics of variability, negotiability and adaptability. Language users use discourse markers to adapt to the context, which includes linguistic context and social interaction context.By reviewing the previous studies, it is found that many researchers have applied Adaptation Theory to study the discourse markers, hoping to contribute to the further study of the language phenomenon. This thesis aims to analyze the pragmatic functions of discourse markers in a special genre---the presidential debate on television, giving a classification of discourse markers and discussing respectively how the speaker chooses discourse markers in order to achieve different communicative aims in accordance with many factors such as mental world, physical world and social world, along with the dynamical adaptable process and meta-pragmatic awareness of the speaker. By applying Adaptation Theory, the author tries to discuss the pragmatic functions produced by the four senators through using discourse markers in the 2004 and 2008 U.S. presidential debates. In addition, the characteristics of discourse markers and the pragmatic strategies in the debate are verified based on the functions and features of discourse markers.