A Corpus-based Study Of The Use Of Discourse Markers By Chinese EFL Learners

Discourse markers are common lexical expressions as part of a discourse segment,which do not contribute to the propositional content but are pivotal in discourse cohesion and comprehension.However,many linguists and teachers have not been aware of their existence.Thus,it is of theoretical significance and practical value to study discourse markers.This study attempts to adopt a contrastive approach based on corpora.It uses Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(SWECCL)as the observation corpus and Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA)as the reference corpus.The present study investigates how Chinese EFL learners use discourse markers in comparison to English native speakers.By adopting Fraser's(2005)framework and both quantitative and qualitative methods,the study investigates frequencies of discourse markers in two corpora and identifies the pragmatic functions of each class of discourse markers.This study chooses eight discourse markers at random out of each type of discourse markers: Contrastive Discourse Markers,Inferential Discourse Markers,and Elaborative Discourse Markers respectively.Therefore,there are 24 DMs in total whose frequency distributions are investigated and pragmatic functions of the most frequent discourse markers are identified.Results in this study show that there is a significant difference in the use of discourse markers by Chinese EFL speakers and English native speakers.Chinese EFL learners employ discourse markers with higher frequencies but fewer types as compared to English native speakers.While English native speakers are found to employ more contrastive discourse markers,Chinese EFL learners use inferential discourse marker more frequently.In terms of individual discourse markers,Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers share a similar pattern of the use of discourse markers: but,so,also are the most frequent discourse markers employed in two corpora.As for pragmatic functions,the pragmatic functions of high-frequency discourse markers used by Chinese EFL learners are similar to those used by English native speakers.Besides,Chinese EFL learners sometimes misuse discourse markers and they also employ discourse markers as self-correction under some circumstances.This study proposes speculation on possible factors including second language acquisition,language proficiency,teachers' influence,etc.This study supplements the results found by previous studies and reveals the pattern of the use of discourse markers by Chinese EFL,which may have some implications for foreign language teaching,especially oral language teaching.