An Analysis Of Different Use Of Discourse Markers In Writing English Argumentations By Male And Female College Students In Engineering

As a common linguistic phenomenon,discourse markers are widely used in spoken and written languages.They refer to those words or phrases that can connect the sentence fragments.Discourse markers are the important means to achieve cohesion and coherence.It has been a hot topic in recent years.And the discourse markers have drawn much attention to the field of discourse analysis and pragmatics.Based on view of Wang Lifei and Zhu Weihua on the classification of discourse markers,this study aims to analyze the different use of discourse markers in writing argumentations by male and female college students in engineering.The participants of this study come from Taiyuan University of Technology.They are junior students majoring in mechanical engineering.In order to discuss the different use of discourse markers in writing English argumentations by male and female college students in engineering,both the quantitative and qualitative analysis methods are adopted.In this study,the software of Antconc 3.2.4 and SPSS 17.0 are used.In addition,the writer of this thesis analyzes the possible reasons for these differences from the perspective of sociolinguistics.The results reveal that there exists a significant difference between male and female students in the use of Concessive Markers,Emphatic Markers,Repetitive Markers and Qualificatory Markers in their argumentative writings.Moreover,in respect of choosing words,the female students' words are more formal,standardized and diversified than that of male students.Furthermore,in the overall usage of discourse markers,compared with male students,the female students are inclined tomake use of various kinds of discourse markers in their argumentative writings.The possible reasons can be analyzed from the perspective of social division of labor,social roles and social psychological features.At last,based on the research results,this study provides a new way of thinking for the theoretical research on discourse markers and gender differences.At the same time,this study offers some pedagogical suggestions.Meanwhile,the writer of this thesis points out the limitations of this study and the issues that should be noticed in future research.