| My study is conducted in the field of research on discourse markers that have attracted many scholars' attention both at home and abroad in recent years.I first review the previous researches on discourse markers, particularly the four approaches: Coherence Approach, Grammatical-Pragmatic Approach, Relevance Approach, and Sociolinguistic Approach. Based on Fraser's (1996, 1998) model and Liao Qiuzhong's(1986) model for analyzing discourse markers, I then describe the classification of discourse markers in both Chinese and English.Since there have been few researches on the discourse markers oh, I choose to study its uses in English and its translation into Chinese. Four English novels such as Jane Eyre, Son and Lovers and two English movie scripts including little Women are examined in my study. For the use frequency of oh as a discourse marker, I find that oh occurs mostly in the initial-part of sentences or turns of dialogues while it sometimes occurs in the middle-part of sentences or turns and seldom occurs at the end of sentences or turns. I also find that in novels oh occurs mainly in dialogues rather than in narrations, but oh is much more frequently used in movie scripts than in novels.Next I discuss the functions of oh and its translation into Chinese. Eleven Chinese novels and nine English novels and movie scripts are examined. Relevance Theory provides us a new perspective to understand such functions served by oh as recognition marker, receipt marker, answer marker, emotion marker and repair marker. Besides Relevance Theory informs us that translation should be optimally relevant to target readers or audience without imposing unnecessary processing effort burden upon them. In analyzing the translation of oh as emotion marker into Chinese, I point out that its translation should not be the same always employing the Chinese expression 哦, but has to be different in different contexts. And oh may not be translated at all in some circumstances.
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