A Relevance-Theoretic Study Of "Well" In Friends

This research attempts to analyze the pragmatic function of"well"as a discourse marker from the perspective of relevance theory.In this thesis, a review of the previous researches on discourse markers is made first, based on which the author proposes that relevance theory is a more interpretative theoretical framework in the study of discourse markers. The research chooses the natural-language data of an American soap opera, Friends (Season 9), as the studying material, and analyzes the functions of"well"in the data in a systematic way. There are altogether 447 uses of"well"in Season 9, out of which 27 are used as content words and the other 420 are used pragmatically. These 420 pragmatic appearances of"well"altogether cover seven categories of pragmatic functions: as a contemplation marker (176), a mitigation marker (111), a coherence-achieving marker (72), a turn-taking marker (30), an insufficiency marker (19), a persuasion marker (8) and a correcting marker (4).This research supports Blakemore's general study of discourse markers on the one hand, and proves the powerful interpretability of relevance theory on the other. Meanwhile, the research can be said to have filled a blank in the Chinese relevance-theoretic studies of the discourse marker"well", as little work has been done so far in this aspect. Hopefully this research will contribute to the future studies within the scope of discourse markers.