, "-", "-" Language Use And Discourse Function

In recent decades,the focus of linguistic research has been shifted from language itself to other relevant issues outside language. Great importance has been attached to "scientificity" in (he methodology. This leads to the development of corpus-based linguistic study.Chinese speakers often use or hear words like (this) and (that),but seldom realize why it is necessary to use them. and which seem to be used neither as demonstratives nor substitutes,are a kind of special markers found only in discourse. These unconsciously uttered words are not considered redundant,but necessary to make discourse sound natural and appropriate.What are the functions of words like and in sequential utterances? Their usage as "demonstratives" and "substitutes" have been studied in terms of "pronouns". Text linguistics has analyzed the "asymmetry" and "grammaticalization" of and . But these studies still cannot explain all the meanings (functions) of and in everyday conversation.The data analyzed in this paper include 7.3 hours of situated discourse collected from March 25 to December 12,2000,among 3-20 Chinese speakers and with Korean students. By describing the distribution of functions of and we examine their pragmatic,discoursal and situated functions. The identification of these functions are based on (1) prosodic learning corpus of functions,(2) reliability test of the description of functions,and (3) definition of the functions of and When doing this analysis,we take into account the constraining factors such as discourse activity types,participants' nationalities,linguistic forms,intentions (specific functions),etc.It is found that there are three types of functions of and in discourse:pragmatic functions,discoursal functions and situated functions. Pragmatic functions include:space deixis,object deixis,shape and properties deixis,time deixis,discourse deixis,anaphora,connectives,etc. Discoursal functions include:situation use,contrasting topics,introducing topics,shifting topics,grabbing turns,maintaining turns,etc. Situated functions include:word finding,utterance finding,word filling,stammering,slips of the tongue,citing,being interrupted,vagueness,etc. These 21 functions have different degrees of grammaticalization,which shows a changing process from deitic expression to discourse markers. It is also found that the use of demonstratives "geu" in Korean (similar to "that" in Chinese) affects the distribution of and used by the Korean.