Application Of Contrastive Discourse Markers In English Speech

English speech contest is an essential way to improve language learning and enhance cultural communication.In prepared speech,speech script is the decisive factor of success.It has the characteristics of written English and oral English.Discourse markers,the vital elements to make wonderful speeches,are usually neglected by people.Recently,there have been sufficient studies on discourse makers at home and abroad,but few studies related to speech contests in terms of discourse markers are carried out,let alone the systematic study of contrastive discourse markers in the area of speech contests.Contrastive discourse markers are a kind of discourse markers,showing contrastive relations in utterances.They are the essential forms in both oral English and written English.In the following part,we would call contrastive discourse markers as CDMs.Through comparing the similarities and differences of the use of CDMs between Chinese students and the native speakers,the thesis is focused on what problems with which Chinese students confront when they use CDMs in the speech scripts.This thesis also sheds light on the reasons why Chinese students can't use them correctly.In addition,this research can provide case studies for data-driven teaching.Based on the relevance-adaptation theory,the author built two corpora including Chinese students'corpus and native students'corpus.Through these two corpora,the author made comparison between Chinese students'scripts and native students'scripts to study contrastive discourse markers.In this thesis,the author selected 100 speech scripts totally including 30scripts from native students and 70 from Chinese students.The Chinese materials adopted in this study were chosen from English Public Speaking Contest of China Daily Cup,FLTRP Cup(Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Cup)and 21~stt Cup,which represent the high level of students'public speeches in China.The foreign scripts were chosen from contests held by American Speech Association and the annual C.Henry Smith Oratorical Contest for college students.As results show,the standardized frequency of CDMs used by Chinese students is lower than that of native students generally.And the kinds of CDMs used by Chinese students is not as flexible and diverse as that of native students.Furthermore,comparing with native students,Chinese students overuse though and instead and underuse but,however,yet,still,in fact,although and rather.For the functions of CDMs,Chinese students want to restrict the interpretations contexts that may occur for audience and help audience get the optimal relevance through less efforts to express what their exact ideas clearly.What's more,the most popular function of CDMs is that Chinese students show the adversative relation and emphasize their views to attract audience's attention.The research shows that the choice of two similar CDMs for Chinese students is the process of selection and adaptation which adapt to the communicative context and linguistic context especially the linguistic structure..In conclusion,the author describes the similarities and differences between Chinese students and native speakers in their use of CDMs and discusses the problems in the use of CDMs for Chinese students,which enriches the research achievements in the field of English speaking.Based on the study,the author advocates data-driven teaching method through building corpora,which shows learner-centered idea.