A Study On Emphatic Discourse Markers Used By Chinese English Majors In Written English

With the classification of discourse markers by Wang Lifei and Zhu Weihua as the theoretical background,this thesis takes the emphatic discourse markers in Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(WECCL)and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays(LOCNESS)as the research objects.The research applies the softwares AntConc 3.2.lw and SPSS to retrieve and analyze the emphatic discourse markers in the two corpora respectively fron the aspects of word frequency,colligation and syntactic function.The thesis aims at exploring the characteristics of emphatic discourse markers in written English used by Chinese English majors and the differences between Chinese English majors and native English speakers.The main findings are as follows:(l)Compared with native English speakers,Chinese English majors use the emphatic discourse markers more frequently and focus on some simple and familiar emphatic discourse markers,such as very,really.(2)In terms of colligation of emphatic discourse markers,Chinese English majors are similar to native English speakers,especially in three patterns“EDMs+adj.","EDMs+v."and“EDMs+adj.+n.".But there are significant differences in specific frequency distribution.For example,Chinese English majors tend to put completely at the end of the sentences,while native English speakers are more likely to use the colligation "completely+adj.".(3)In syntactic function,Chinese English majors and native English speakers are both inclined to use the emphatic discourse markers to modify adjectives,noun phrases and verbs,but Chinese English majors have significantly higher frequency than that of the latter.After the quantitative and qualitative analysis,the following conclusions can be drawn:Chinese English majors basically grasp the colligations and syntactic functions of the emphatic discourse markers,but there are excessive uses of certain emphatic discourse markers.Reasons for the overuse of certain emphatic discourse markers may include transfer of native language and learning strategies.This research to a certain degree enriches the related research on emphatic discourse markers,and hopefully the suggestions for teaching and acquisition of emphatic discourse markers may provide implications for English writing teaching.