A Study Of Discourse Marker Like In Unilateral Communication-Take Louie As Corpus

Discourse markers are natural language expressions that reflect the speaker's psychological attitude towards the process and results of events.They are one of the most salient features of present-day vernacular English.Discourse markers bear no semantic meaning and can not be categorized as traditional grammar,but they boast pragmatic meaning to help promote the smooth progress of utterances.Although there already exist significant achievements in the field of discourse markers at home and abroad,studies of one specific discourse marker are relatively rare and perspectives of those are limited.As a frequently used discourse marker in daily communication,like often seems to mean meaningless pause and unconscious insertion,but in fact it fulfills more complex pragmatic functions in contexts.From the theoretical considerations of context and optimal relevance,this study explores the use of like as a discourse marker by a comic in stand-up comedy Louie.This show is chosen as contexts for the research in that it provides a wide variety of plots and highly dynamic sites.From one plot to another,or sometimes within one plot,contexts shift constantly.Although the lines are written in advance by Louie,there are real-time interaction and improvisation when faced with the audience during performance,so the comedian is in a tense state of acting,and the author believes that the performer unconsciously monitors his use of the discourse marker like,a word that realizes quoting and self-rephrasing functions more often than it functions to carry significant semantic weight.This study intends to answer two research questions that follow(1)what are the placements of discourse marker like in the sentence structure;and(2)what are the pragmatic functions of discourse marker like in unilateral communication? In order to answer the questions mentioned above,this study adopts qualitative and quantitative methods.Elements of the linguistic environment of discourse marker like are primarily analyzed,including its frequency,collocation,and other co-occurrence features,then the categories of pragmatic functions of discourse marker like in different contexts are systematically classified.The research reveals that(1)in terms of syntax,discoursemarker like appears before a noun phrase/reported speech/verb phrase/subordinate clause/narrative clause/adverb/adjective,before or after another discourse marker,and in broken utterances;(2)in terms of pragmatic meaning,discourse marker like mainly functions as a marker of number/quotation/exemplification/focus/self-rephrase in unilateral communication.Conclusions can be drawn in this research that discourse marker like realizes its complex pragmatic meaning in its various placements in sentence.The addresser in unilateral communication capitalizes on the inherent ambiguity of using like in subconscious ways for the purpose of role-switching and maintaining continuous flow of speech in performance.From the perspective of pragmatics,this study enriches the study of discourse markers as well as the word like,which can enlighten the use of discourse markers for EFL learners in the construction of spoken discourse.In English learning,students should consciously improve their ability to use discourse markers properly in order to better communicate with others.