Research Of Discourse Marker Of "Zhen De Shi"

The discourse marker "zhen de shi" is taken as the research object in this thesis.Based on natural conversational spoken corpora,using theories like relevance theory,conversational strategies and grammaticalization theory,and taking method of combining description with explanation,quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis,and synchronic research with diachronic research,the identity of the discourse marker "zhen de shi" is judged,the positional characters and functions of "zhen de shi" are categorized,and the evolution path and formation mechanism are also concluded as well.This thesis consists of six parts.The first chapter is introduction,including the reasons of choosing the topic,research objects,literature reviews,research theories and methods,and source of the corpora.In the research object part,the phrase "zhen de shi" is preliminarily distinguished from the research object "zhen de shi".In the literature review section,the existing researches on discourse marker and "zhen" are explainde and summarized.At the same time,the research theories and methods adopted in the research and the sources of corpus are briefly introduced in the end of this chapter.The second chapter determines whether "zhen de shi" can serve as a discourse marker.On the basis of previous research,this chapter arrives at the semantic,syntactic,and phonic conditions of judging discourse markers,which are applied to judge whether the "zhen de shi" used in this thesis tallies with the characteristics of discourse markers.With non-truth value,syntactic separability and phonic identifiability,the "zhen de shi"in the thesis meets those criteria.This is the basis of the study.The third chapter studies the position of the discourse marker "zhen de shi" in two different conversational units:conversational turn and sequence.The discourse marker,with the highest frequency,appears in the middle of the conversational turn(87.5%),with appearing in the end(6.23%)and in the beginning(4.6%).It appears in the single conversational turn with the lowest frequency(1.562%).The analysis of sequence in response,comment,narration and ending is conducted respectively.The forth chapter analyzes the discourse function of discourse markers.From the perspective of discourse form and content,this paper summarizes the discourse organization function of discourse marker "zhen de shi" in terms of form coherence and content coherence.The general form coherence function can be divided into accepting turn and transferring turn,and the partial form coherence function can be divided into the occupying turn and continuing turn.The content coherence function can be divided into topic setting,topic continuing,topic pulling,cause explaining and detail narrating.The fifth chapter analyzes the interpersonal interaction function of the discourse marker "zhen de shin by observing the corpora.The discourse marker "zhen de shi"mainly has three major interpersonal interaction functions:information highlighting,attitude prompting and face saving.The function of information highlighting refers to the function of the discourse marker "zhen de shi" in the communication,which transforms the background information into the shared state of both speaker and hearer so as to highlight the information.The attitude prompting function refers to the fact that the discourse marker "zhen de shi" can be used in communication to instruct the speaker's true attitude to the listener,reducing the burden of the listener's understanding of the speaker's communicative intention,and showing language subjectivity.Face saving function refers to the fact that the discourse marker "zhen de shi" can reduce the risk of communication behavior by omitting negative comments and showing agreement and approval,so as to protect the face of listener and ensure communication smooth.The sixth chapter includes the reseach in evolution path and the formation mechanism of the discourse marker "zhen de shi".The grammaticalization path is traced in the former part,where the grammaticalizing process of "zhen de",the changing path of how "shi" transforms from a link verb in the beginning to a focal marker,then to an lexical part,and the course of being fixed as a discourse marker with "zhen de" are displayed.The latter part holds the idea that the formation mechanism of discourse marker "zhen de shi" mainly includes two aspects:re-analysis,subjectization and interactive subjectization.