A Study Of Metadiscourse In Setting Forth Views In Collegiate Chinese Debate

Metadiscourse has been a heated topic in linguistics since it was advanced.At present,studies on metadiscourse mainly adopt Hyland's metadiscourse classification.Influenced by Hyland,researchers Abdi,Rizi and Tavakoli in 2010,according to the interaction function of metadiscourse,amended Cooperative Principle and from the perspective of this amended Cooperative Principle they made further efforts to set forth a new metadiscourse framework to instruct speakers or writers how to use metadiscourse in a discourse correctly and properly.In setting forth views of a debate,debaters often need to make their points well arranged and pave the way for ensuing refutation and free debate.What's more,it is also a critical process for debaters to communicate and interact with audience to gain a good favor.Therefore,the importance of setting forth views in debates cannot be neglected.However,present studies of debating language mainly gather in discussion of free debate and rebuttal summary while the studies on setting forth views have been ignored.In this thesis,based on previous studies and Abdi's CP-based model of metadiscourse,a quantitative and qualitative study on metadiscourse will be presented to analyze fifteen setting forth views in China's Ivy League collegiate Chinese debates to explore the following two main questions:(1)What are the employment features of metadiscourse in setting forth views in collegiate Chinese debate?(2)What are the pragmatic functions of metadiscourse in setting forth views in collegiate Chinese debate? The former mainly focuses on the study of metadiscourse distribution and how metadiscourse are used to research the employment features of metadiscourse in setting forth views.But the later is conducted from two aspects,the perspective of interactive communication and debater's identity construction,to examine the pragmatic function of metadiscourse in setting forth views.Through statistical analysis of collected data,it is found that:(1)Metadiscourse embodying the maxim of interaction take up the highest frequency among the four.It is followed by metadiscourse embodying the maxim of manner,quality and quantity.And metadiscourse embodying the maxim of interaction and metadiscourse embodying the maximof manner account over sixty percent of the total.However,in subtypes of metadiscourse,engagement markers are employed most frequently and it is followed by self-mentions,transitions,frame markers,boosters,attitude markers,collapsers,code glosses,disclaimers,endophoric markers,evidentials and hedges in turn;(2)Debaters tend to use metadiscourse embodying the maxim of interaction to interact with audience,narrow the distance between each other and win favor and support from audience.Besides,metadiscourse embodying the maxim of quality,interaction,quantity and manner are also applied by debaters to construct necessary identity such as honest and reliable identity,cautious and modest identity and partner identity to obtain audience's trust and strengthen persuasive force of arguments.In addition,the distribution of metadiscourse also reflects discourse features of setting forth views of collegiate Chinese debate and debaters' linguistic intentions.This study aims to explore the general employment rule of metadiscourse and its pragmatic function in setting forth views in collegiate Chinese debate,in order to offer a reference for proper use of metadiscourse in setting forth views in collegiate Chinese debate and aid debaters in writing excellent setting forth views in a debate.