1.2 Studies of Discourse Markers Abroad and at Home
1.2.1 Studies of Discourse Markers Abroad
Entering 1970s，the formation and understanding of discourse more and more aroused people's interest，and the number of scholars engaging in the study of discourse markers hence increased.The consideration of language use requires us to go beyond the sentence and look at lager stretches of language.Normal linguistic behavior does not consist in the production of separate sentences but in the use of sentences for the creation of discourse.(Widdowson，1973)
Leech，Svartvik，Erman，Schiffrin，Redeker，Simon and Fraser respectively made systematic description of discourse markers and discovered that the use of discourse markers in itself is not optional，but rule－based.At the same time，along with the development of pragmatics and discourse analysis，the study of discourse markers was also given a great boost.
Leech and Svartvik，(1975)devote one section to“Meaning in connected discourse”and look at how meaning can be put together in utterance discourse.They present four ways of organizing connections which can be exemplified as follows:
1.linking signals
These include familiar‘signposts’which signal what comes next，for example incidentally for changing the subject or that is to say to signal an explanation
2.linking constructions
These include conjunctions used to co－ordinate and subordinate clauses，for example and，or and if，because，and adverbial links such as however for contrast.
3.general purpose links
These include participle and verbless clauses，for example:
Being a farmer，he has to get up early.
He started at the floor，too nervous to reply.
4.order and emphasis
This includes variations inpresenting information in order to create emphasis，using such devices as‘it－clauses’，for example:
It was by train that we reached Istanbul.
Never have Iseen hiMso angry.
(Leech and Svartvik 1975:156－81)
Though there is no overt ideas about discourse markers in the above，these categories actually imply there are a certain number of signals in the sentences or utterances to help the listeners more easily understand and grasp what the speaker emphasized and to know how the ideas are organized and ordered，and linked and developed through a piece of discourse.
Late in the 1980s is the golden stage for the development of the study of discourse markers，during which time，whether its research team，research results，or the impact on linguistics，were far better than before.The following are severalmajor events of discourse markers research in the late 1980s:
1.Two special edition
In 1977，Journal of Pragmatics，founded in Netherlands，Jacob L.Mey(Odense University－Denmark)is the currenteditor.In 1986 themagazine for the first time generally introduced the study of discourse markers(termed particle at that time)in various languages in the forMof special edition;the profile of this issue edited by Anna Wierzbick froMMaustralian National University was named Particles as its topic.In 1990，“discourse markers”as the special edition theme was officially published in Journal of Pragmatics，J.Ostman and J.Verschueren were the editors.In addition，the magazine often published articles about“discourse markers”.
2.Two books:
DISCOURSE MARKER written by linguistics professor Deborah Schiffrin froMGeorgetown University in 1987 is generally accepted in linguistics and has the greatest impact in the field of discourse markers.Itwas a revision based on Schiffrin's doctoral thesis at the University of Pennsylvania and recognized as a pioneer in the field of discourse markers.
Another one is much more known，that is Pragmatic expressions in English:a study of you know，you see and Imean in face－to－face conversation written by a English major professor Britt Erman froMStockholMUniversity in 1986.Maybe the reason why it is not conductive to study it as an independent subject is that the terminology“Pragmatic Expressions”employed by Erman is too general.But it is worth noting that Erman is the first to make a systematic description of such expressions based on the study of a large number of empirical examples(taken froMthe existing corpus).
The above two books marked the culmination of research results was to a large part based on previous scholars’research.
Schiffrin(1987)as a pioneer in this field，published her masterpiece Discourse Markers in 1987，in which she suggests that discourse markers are never binding，which means that the content of the text can be far froMincomplete and unintelligible with the omitting of discourse markers.Therefore，they do not add propositional content to the sentences，and the meaning of each sentence would still be complete and transparent when they were omitted.If so，why do people still use so many discourse markers in discourse？This may be due to the fact that Discourse markers havemany important functions.Thus，she also listed some functions of discourse markers，such as cohesive function，repairing function and regulative function.
Redeker，in a review article，criticizes Schiffrin’s model for several reasons.Two of the main points are that there are inconsistencies between the descriptions of the individual discourse markers and their place in her model(resp.a table assigning markers to planes of themodel)，and that the planes in her model are not all comparable nor well－defined or consistently treated.Regarding the first point of criticism，Redeker writes:“Examples of marker functions not included in DS’s［Schiffrin’s］table can be found in DM［the book Discourse markers］，in the narratives described in Redeker(1986)，and elsewhere in the literature on spontaneous talk”(Redeker 1991:1151).Following this statement，Redeker presents examples of markers which Schiffrin describes as functioning at a particular plane，and analogous examples with other markers which have not been accorded the same place in the hermodel.Furthermore，Redeker complains about the lack of examples formarker－plane relationships;some markers’function on particular planes(e.g.so in action structure)are only scantily illustrated(Redeker 1991:1149).
Regarding the second point of criticism，Redeker argues that“the components information structure and participation framework are clearly not on par with the other three planes.The cognitions and attitudes composing those two components concern individual utterances，while the building blocks at the other three planes are relational concepts”(Redeker1991:1162).In the course of the book，moreover，the notion of ideational structure seems to be defined in various ways，surrounding it with“unnecessary haziness”(ibid.).Also，she considers it a shortcoming that Schiffrin does not include monological discourse in hermodel.
American scholar，Fraser whose study is most worth mentioning continued to make a series of study of discourse markers froMthe perspective of pragmatics and syntax.Fraser’s framework depends upon a differentiation between content and pragmatic meaning.Content meaning is referential meaning:“amore or less explicit representation of some state of theworld that the speaker intends to bring to the hearer’s attention by means of the literal interpretation of the sentence”(Fraser，1990:386).He suggests that discourse markers have their own syntactic features，yet they also have a pragmatic function.His perspective on discourse markers was a syntactic－pragmatic one.Therefore，he claims that the discourse markers can be termed as a“pragmatic category”like syntactic categories.They are used to indicate the relationship between the previous and the current utterances;express procedural meaning，as opposed to conceptual meaning;and they provide orientation for text comprehension.Their function is to facilitate the reader’s identification and comprehension of discourse，rather than express their own semantic content or propositionalmeanings.However，in his analysis he only mentioned a single statement or a nearby word，instead of analyzing the relations between discourse markers and discourse coherence in a broader scope or in the overall，which is his shortcoming.Anyhow，Fraser’s theory provides a convenient and appealingly rational basis for assigning expressions to the category of discourse markers.
Simon Muller’s categorization of textual functions comes close to Schiffrin’s functions in the ideational structure，but it goes slightly beyond.Most of these occurred in the narrative parts of the GLBCC，although they were not entirely restricted to the narratives.These functions have in common that they do not directly address the hearer;instead，they remain focused on lexical expressions and propositional content expressed in units of various length，froMsingle words or phrases to a sequence of utterances describing a particular scene.Thus，focus on lexical expressions is found in instances where the discourse marker is used to indicate a search for a phrase which expresses what the speaker has in mind，and where it is used to mark false starts and repair.Also，the marker can indicate that the following terMis not necessarily an exact one.Other functions at the textual level are to structure propositional content:for example，they mark transitions froMone scene to another，froMmain ideas or the main story line to explanations and exemplifications and back to the main idea again.Markers may also serve to distinguish between the speaker’s own voice and the voice of somebody else by introducing quotations.In the course of my analysis，it has become obvious that several of the textual functions are served by more than one marker，though in different ways.
He described the functions of so，well，you know and like in detail and compare theMto the functions other researchers had identified for these four markers.Therefore，the author will here present only a short summary of how the functions of(groups of)discourse markers have been described in the literature.Most researchers agree that the use of discourse markers facilitates the hearer’s task of understanding the speaker’s utterances.As Aijmer(1996:210)puts it，they“function as cues or guides to the hearer’s interpretation”(cf.also Ariel 1998:223).There are two basic frameworks which look at discourse markers froMdifferent perspectives but eventually come to very similar conclusions:Coherence and Relevance Theory.Risselada and Spooren(1998:131)still claiMthat most approaches to discourse markers are based on coherence(cf.for example Schiffrin 1985;Holmes 1986;Redeker 1990;Lenk 1995;Mosegaard Hansen 1998;Takahara 1999;Lee－Wong 2001;Degand and Sanders 2002;Fuller 2003);there are also a number of studies using Relevance Theory(cf.for example Blakemore 1988;Jucker 1988;Blass1990;Helt and Foster－Cohen 1996;Unger 1996;Ariel 1998;Andersen 2001).While the coherence framework is said to focusmore on the textual functions(e.g.Andersen et al.1999:1339)，Relevance Theory focuses on cognitive processes(see Sperber and Wilson 1986).
1.2.2 Studies of Discourse Markers at Home
Discourse markerhas been a hot topic focused by discourse analysis，pragmatics，and other concerning subjects in abroad for a long time，while in China it is still at the starting stage and has not formed its own theoretical system.The research on it began in the late 1970s.There are not so many linguists in China engaging in the study of discourse markers as abroad.However，some of the researchers who have done some related studies in this filed indeed shed some light on the domestic study of discourse markers.In China，the researchers who have made contributions to such study are represented by He Ziran，Ran yongping，Mo Aiping，Yu Guodong and Wu Yaxin.
In 1998，the term“discourse marker”first appeared in He Ziran and Ran Yongping’s article.He Ziran，a professor froMGuangdong University of Foreign Studies，pioneered in the study of this field in the end of1990s and has presided over a project named“the comparative pragmatic－cognitive study of discourse markers in Chinese and English”.He has focused his study on the pragmatic constraints of discourse markers on utterance production and interpretation.He maintains that many phenomena in verbal communication are basically a pragmatic－cognitive question.The role discourse markers play in verbal communication is not confined to the syntactic－semantic constraints.They are dynamic in communication and provide pragmatic－cognitive evidence for utterance interpretation.They explore the pragmatic－cognitive functions of discourse markers in utterance interpretation.And since then，discourse makers have attracted Chinese scholars’attention and some studies on discourse markers have been done in context.
Ran yongping，another professor also froMGuangdong University of Foreign Studies，is one of the most influential researchers in thisfield.Though he has not made attracted contribution to this field，in his unpublished PHD dissertation，he has made a relatively detailed analysis of Chinese Discourse markers and their functions in discourse.He classifies discourse markers into eight types followed by:topic－related markers，evidential markers，inferential markers，reformulation markers，manner of－speaking markers，contrastive markers，self－assessment markers，locutionary performatives.At present，as to whatare discourse markers and what is their referring scope？There is still a lack of a unified definition，but froMthe research literature in recent years，a growing number of scholars tend to think that they are a common discourse phenomenon in oral communication.(Ran Yongping，2000).In his A Pragmatic Account of the Discourse Marker Well，he mentioned that the terMdiscourse markers are such words often used in amixture with discourse particle and discourse markers.According to him，concerning the discourse markers，there is one point tended to be more and more agreed，that is the function of similar words or words of the similar structure ismainly pragmatics，rather than syntax or semantics.In speech communication，the effect of discourse markers is to regulate the communicative interaction through a variety of ways，they do not directly constitute propositional content of a discourse and are not confined to syntactic structure.According to Ran，in the discourse comprehension，when the listeners deal with the information，they can directly use the decoding information of discourse markers so as to gain the speaker's speech act types，such as conversation amendments，the topic change，and the information addition.
Mo Aiping，also a professor，made greatcontribution to the study of discourse markers.According to her，discourse marker is a commonly used term，which has no effect on the real condition of discourse and adds no new propositional content to the discourse，but it has the function of restricting the construction and comprehension of the discourse.In particular，it plays the crucial role in distinguishing coherent relations between two discourses.What discourse marker expresses is not structural or conceptual，but only to facilitate people to understand discourse，thus，restricting people's intuitive suggestion of discourse comprehension(Mo Aiping，2001).
Yu Guodong(2003)，another scholar engaged in discourse markers research，has searched for the crucial role discourse markers play in the college English listening teaching based on the relevance theory.FroMher point of view，there are various kinds of forms of discourse markers in English listening materials，and they play an active role in improving listeners’understanding of the discourse content and making exactexpectation for the keymessage provided by the speakers.She suggests that the discourse markers possess the function of connecting are often of vital significance.She also maintains that the functions of discourse markers mean differently to speakers and hearers.Discourse markers help speakers construct discourse and perforMdifferent pragmatic functions to facilitate communication.While on the part of the hearers，discourse markers help theMbetter understand discourse and infer the implication of utterances.FroMher point of view，discourse markersmay be divided into three types:the first type indicate that the present utterance and the previous one(s)are semantically or logically related.This type consists of several subcategories，i.e.inferential markers，conclusive markers and contrastive markers，etc.The second type，mostly hedges，show that the utterance introduced by discourse markers has no necessary logical relation with the previous and following utterances in discourse progressing.The last type simply introduces the following utterances without positing its logical connection with the previous utterances.Typical examples of this type include topic initiating markers and topic shifting markers.
Wu Yaxin(2003)analyses the functions of discourse markers froMa metapragmatic perspective，that is，treating discourse markers as indicators of meta－pragmatic awareness.Wu Yaxin suggests that people are more or less monitored and guided by theirmeta－pragmatic awareness when using language and the meta－pragmatic awareness can be indicated by various linguistic devices，to which discourse markers belong.Therefore，she claims that discourse markers are a reflection of language users＇meta－pragmatic awareness.And she tentatively explores the relationship between discourse markers and meta－pragmatic awareness，and the different meta－pragmatic information conveyed by discourse markers.