A Study Of The Discourse Markers In Donald Trump's Political Speeches From The Perspective Of The Relevance Theory

In 1950 s,researchers began to study Discourse Markers(shortened as DM).The DMs contribute to coherence and fluency of utterances,but they don't serve as a part in a sentence.Trump,as the president in America,delivers political speeches every weekend,and on important occasions and holidays as well,covering politics,economy,culture,institution,revolution,health,medical treatment,employment,etc.In his speeches,there exist a large quantity of DMs.This research regards the Relevance Theory as a framework,chooses 50 political speeches of Trump's as the corpora,and adopts classification criteria of the DMs by Blakemore(1987),aiming to explore the frequencies and positions of the DMs,and analyze the pragmatic functions of the DM which has the highest frequency in Trump's speeches from the perspective of the Relevance Theory.To achieve research intentions,quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted.Microsoft Word and Antconc are used to get the frequency of each DM,the frequencies of the DMs introducing contextual implications,concerned with strengthening and concerning denials,and the percentage of each type of position as well.The qualitative research is utilized to study the pragmatic functions of and,which has the highest frequency among all the DMs in Trump's speeches and these functions are studied from the perspective of the Relevance Theory.The results show,1)three types of DMs all occur in Trump's political speeches;however,the DMs concerned with strengthening are mostly uttered by Trump,followed by the DMs introducing contextual implications and concerning denials.The frequency of each DM in the corpora is different.Through comparing,and has the highest frequency among all the DMs.2)The DMs can be placed at the beginning,in the middle and at the end of the sentences;however,most of the DMs are in the middle of the sentences and the least of DMs are at the end of the sentences;3)And has the following pragmatic functions: supplementing instructions,introducing implicit context,shifting topics,sublimating hearers' feelings,presenting relationships and strengthening degree,etc.It is hoped that this research not only providesreferences for future studies on DMs in political speeches but also prompts people to understand and use the DMs better in their daily life.