A Study On Chinese Discourse Markers Based On Meta-Discourse Competence

Discourse markers have been one of the research interests in pragmatics in recent years. Domestic studies on discourse markers mainly focused on ontological studies and teaching studies. The former elaborated the coherence function of discourse markers, or laid emphasis on features of certain subcategory of discourse markers, or described the pragmatic functions and the grammaticalization process of one discourse marker without considering the overall perceptions of them. Teaching studies mainly focused on the contrast of the acquisition of discourse markers between Chinese students who learn English and English native speakers, or testified the effect on the improvement of language skills by learning discourse markers, regarding the acquisition of discourse markers as a way to enrich language expression. These studies didn’t explain why the acquisition of discourse makers can promote the development of language skills. The importance of learning discourse markers by foreign students hasn’t been realized in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, and relative studies are still at an early stage.This dissertation studied discourse markers in developing the meta-discourse competence of foreign students in China, trying to cater ontological studies for practice. We firstly contended that the interactive capability of metacognition was exactly meta-discourse competence, based on the interaction of metacognition in communication between the speaker and the listener. We held the view that interaction of meatcognition was the cognitive mechanism of metadiscourse, and metadiscourse can turn into discourse markers through grammaticalization. Then the study defined the scope, definition, features of discourse markers based on the ideas that discourse markers are metadisourse with procedural functions and discourse markers are aregrammaticalized metadiscourse. We distinguished other similar terms and discourse markers, and divided discourse markers into explicit and tacit ones according to the degree of their grammaticalization. The dissertation also studied the differences between discourse markers in numbers, directions, semantic orientations of their scope, explored the relationship between discourse markers, turn-takings and topics, and tried to find out different degree of compactness between discourse markers and the sentences in which their scopes existed. We demonstrated how a listener helped himself understanding the discourse with discourse markers by finding out the scopes and analyzing the semantic relationship between scopes with the example of "hua shuo hui lai". At last, the dissertation gave some suggestions on teaching discourse markers in future based on the inspection of current teaching situation of discourse markers.The major achievements of our research include:1. Answering the question How Are Discourse Markers Produced from the perspective of cognitive psychology. We hold the point that the speakers’ metacogintion will organize, monitor and adjust his discourse in communication and the interaction of metacognition happens when the speaker wants the listener to know the result of his metacogniton’s activities. Metadiscourses with procedural functions are one of the linguistic performances of metacognition activities, they can become discourse markers through grammaticalization.2. Re-defining the scope, definition and features of discourse markers based on the view that discourse markers are grammaticalized metadiscourse with procedural functions. Dividing discourse markers into two categories:explicit and tacit ones by the degree of their grammaticalization. The classification is useful for teaching and learning.3. Studying discourse markers from multiple dimensions through their scopes. The procedural function of discourse markers is realized by finding out the scopes and analyzing their relationships. Studying discourse markers through their scopes can help the listeners to generalize discourse markers’discourse structures and pragmatic functions, so that they can understand discourse with discourse markers.4. Suggesting putting emphasis on teaching tacit discourse markers by implicit-approach in class, and designing teaching procedure for it in order to improve students’ acquisition of discourse markers out of classroom.The dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter one comes straight to the point that we consider the using and understanding of discourse markers are the manifestation of meta-discourse competence, and it is very important to train foreign students’meat-discourse competence at the middle and senior stages. Based on the summary of studies on discourse markers home and abroad, we pointed out the shortage of internal studies and research directions in the future. The research focus, the methodology and the source of corpus are introduced as well.Chapter two switches from cognition to metacognition and to meta-discourse competence and believes that meta-discourse competence can be performed by using and understanding metadiscourse or discourse markers, contending that interactive capability of metacognition is exactly meta-discourse competence. We studied how metadiscourse reflects metacognition and how metadiscourses turn into discourse markers. This chapter answered the question How Discourse Markers Are Produced?Chapter three defines the scope, definiton and features of discourse marker from their essential attribute and distinguishes the term "discourse markers" from other similar terms. We divide discourse markers into explicit and tacit ones according to their degree of grammaticalization. This chapter answered the question What Are Discourse Markers and How to Judge a Discourse Marker. Chapter four analyzes the number and directions of discourse markers’ scopes, the semantic orientations of scopes, the relationship between scopes, turn-takings and topics, and the different compactness between discourse markers and sentences in which their scopes exists. We also illustrate how a listener use discourse markers to help himself understanding discourse by finding out scopes and analyzing their relationships. This chapter answered the question How Discourse Markers’ Procedural Functions Work.Chapter five combines ontological studies with the teaching practice in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. We inspect the present situation of discourse markers in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language first, then suggest training foreign students’ability of using the procedural functions of discourse markers especially in listening classes and applying implicit-approach to teaching tacit discourse markers.Chapter six summarizes the major achievements of our research, reveals the innovations and limitations of the dissertation, and sheds light on the orientation for further studies.