Chapter I Introduction
1.1 Research Background
English written expression is an important way to make it happen that English can be regarded as a means of communication. All kinds of standardized language tests (such as CET4/6, TEM4/8, etc.) require English learners to use the language concisely and accurately in the process of writing, and they should avoid using spoken language as much as possible. Previous teaching and research on English writing has been carried on within the framework of discourse analysis and second language acquisition, thus exploring pragmatic phenomena such as structural cohesion, semantic coherence, negative transfer of mother tongue and so on. With the development of discourse analysis, scholars begin to explore the relationship between discourse markers and the quality of written expression. Tseng and Dan (2013) makes a research, which shows that the use of discourse markers is positively related to the quality of compositions. Juliane (1996) points out that discourse markers can assist in the construction of clauses and contribute to the coherence of writing. Xu Jing (2007) holds that the correct choice of discourse markers is one of the important criteria to judge the quality of writing. Qiao Lanli. (2004) uses a corpus-based approach and finds the frequency of conjunctive adverbs used by Chinese learners in argumentative writing, which is highly correlated with their writing scores. Wu Yaxin (2003) makes surveys that demonstrate that Chinese English learners have reflected some certain degree of pragmatic cognitive awareness in English argumentative writing, but the use of discourse markers is relatively simple. Obviously, these studies have not gone beyond the language itself, and have not yet touched upon the influence of language users' cognitive states on the use and comprehension of discourse markers.
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1.2 Research Questions
In recent years, the study of discourse markers has attracted much attention in the field of pragmatics both at home and abroad. It is evident that scholars are interested in the study of discourse markers, for example: The Journal of Pragmatics, an international journal of pragmatics, has published two special studies about discourse markers in 1998 and 2001. Although scholars have made a thorough and systematic study of discourse markers from different perspectives in the past few decades, new research methods and perspectives have emerged with the development of pragmatics itself. All these provide us with new topics and make us become more aware of discourse markers. A comprehensive understanding of discourse markers provides an opportunity. Based on the metapragmatic awareness proposed by Verschueren (2000), this paper aims to reveal the relationship between discourse markers and the metapragmatic awareness of language users, and finds out what metapragmatic functions that different discourse markers have.
In order to find out more about the characteristics of discourse markers used by English learners, this study tries to give answer to the following questions.
Research question 1. What are the general characteristics of discourse markers in Chinese English learners' written expressions?
Research question 2. What are the metapragmatic awareness functions of discourse markers used by Chinese English learners' in their writing expressions?
Research question 3. What kinds of the metapragmatic awareness are behind the choice of discourse markers made by Chinese English learners?
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Chapter II Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Discourse Markers
Ostman (1978) defines discourse markers as pragmatic particles to convey the speaker's attitudes and feelings implicitly. He believes that the understanding of each communicative act relies on the context of pragmatics. When the listener understands a certain utterance, the pragmatic particles pass on the necessary information related to the context. He contends that pragmatics could be viewed as a key means of conversation organization. Unfortunately, he does not define pragmatic particles explicitly. Zwicky (1957) views discourse markers as the grammatical words, which are independent of the rest of the sentence syntactically and poetically. He believes that discourse markers possess pragmatic functions instead of syntactic functions. In addition, he proposes that discourse markers should be separated from other functional words, and discourse markers always appear at the start of a sentence to go on the following conversation.
Although discourse markers are only a group of small words, they are ubiquitous in various languages. Researchers from different ethnic groups and countries have discussed them from different perspectives. Many scholars have studied them from the perspectives of psychology, philosophy and linguistics. The study of discourse markers has shifted from the perspective of syntax-pragmatics and semantics-pragmatics to the perspective of pragmatic cognition.
Shiffrin (1981) makes a comprehensive study of several discourse markers in English. He defines discourse markers as "continuous and interdependent components that define the conversational part", and identifies the relationship between adjacent pairs and their coherence at the level of local coherence. Later, she describes the discourse slogans as "parallels of contexts in continuous conversation", "parallels of contexts for the generation and understanding of special linguistic and non-linguisticforms". Blakemore (2001) defines discourse markers as expressions that "define the understanding of the discourse in which they are based on the inferential relations they express". She argues that discourse markers indicate how the relevance of one proposition depends on the understanding of another proposition. Discourse markers act as syntactic restrictions on relevance because they guide the reader to achieve relevance and help the reader understand the textual meaning.
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2.2 Studies on Discourse Makers
After the first scholar Quirk (1953) studied discourse markers, many researchers at home and abroad have studied discourse markers from different perspectives, ranging from the study of discourse markers as a whole to the study of single words or phrases, etc.
2.2.1 Studies on Discourse Makers Abroad
Most languages in the world have a series of words or phrases. They do not belong to any syntactic category, nor do they represent objects, events or attributes. Their meanings have no effect on the conjectural meaning of the discourse, but as information markers, they restrict the understanding of the discourse. In discourse communication, they do not directly participate in the content of discourse, and thepropositions expressed in discourse do not have an impact, but they can link up the sentence structure, restrict the comprehension of discourse from the whole or partial aspect, embodying the writer's intention, and showing the state of understanding information and viewpoints. For example:
(1) Ann and Frank were late in getting up. Anyway, they attended the lecture on time
(2) She was too sick to stay. Consequently, the teacher let him home (Fraser, 1999: 931-952).
The "Anyway and Consequently " in the two sentences do not convey the main message of the meaning in writing, but they do indicate some logical turning relationships between the two sentences, and indicate the cause and result relationship. They constitute the context of a communicative situation, linking the components of a discourse, indicating the direction of understanding of the discourse, and finding the relevance of the discourse according to that direction. Discourse markers are the linguistic markers chosen by the language user to guide the readers to understand the discourse correctly. Because of the different starting points and emphasis of the study, scholars at home and abroad give many different names to this kind of structure, such as logical connectives, discourse connectives, pragmatic markers, discourse particles and so on. The term "discourse marker" is proposed by Schiffrin (2001), that is, "independent linguistic element that marks the sequence relations of discourse units".
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Chapter III Theoretical Foundation ..................... 25
3.1 The Theory of Metapragmatic Awareness .................... 25
3.2 The Expressions of Metapragmatic Awareness ................. 27
Chapter IV The Metapragmatic Functions of Discourse Markers ....................... 30
4.1 Building and Organizing of Discourses .......................... 30
4.2 Expressing of Emotions and Intentions in Written English .................... 31
Chapter V The Metapragmatic Awareness of Discourse Markers ....................... 35
5.1 Organization of Discourses ......................... 36
5.2 Communications of Discourse Information .................... 38
Chapter V The Metapragmatic Awareness of Discourse Markers
5.1 Organization of Discourses
In the process of writing communication, the language user will use discourse markers to remind the reader in order to avoid the abrupt start, change and end of the topic. Discourse markers are powerful means of topic initiation, topic continuation, topic switching and topic negotiation.
1. Starting the topic
In writing communication, discourse markers can be used to start a topic in order to avoid starting a topic too abruptly.
(1)To begin with，Lily would like to introduce their distinguished guest Mr. Zhang．
(2)Well，let’s begin our lecture． Today，we are going to discuss Subjunctive Mood．
(3)First of all，I will state my point of view．
The example (1), example (2) and example (3) use "to begin with", "well", "first of all" to start the following topic, so as to make the new topic more fluent and not abrupt.
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Chapter VI Conclusion
6.1 Major Findings
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