A Relevance-theoretic Study Of Chinese EFL Learners' Use Of But As A Discourse Marker

Discourse Markers (DMs for short) have become one of the heatedly discussed issues in conversational analysis and pragmatics. Most studies of DMs have been devoted to English used by native speakers. But few studies have been conducted to explore the use of DMs in the Chinese context,and no systematic study of the DM but used by Chinese EFL learners has seen the light of day. In view of this, this thesis aims to study the DM but used by Chinese EFL learners and summarizes its principle.Based on the corpus COLSEC, this thesis adopts quantitative and qualitative analyses to study the DM but used by Chinese EFL learners in terms of overall frequencies, collocations, syntactic positions and pragmatic functions in the light of Relevance Theory. It explores the differences in the use of the DM but between Chinese EFL learners and native speakers, points out possible causes underlying such uses of the DM but in COLSEC in terms of pragmatic transfer and fossilization, and indicates some possible improvements that could be made for Chinese EFL learners'use of the DM but.This study enlarges the application of Relevance Theory, enriches and develops the study of DMs. Though limited, the findings of the thesis, with reference to second language acquisition from a cognitive angle, make a great contribution to Chinese EFL learners. Meanwhile, Relevance Theory sheds light on the understanding and interpretation of DMs and has a wide range of constructive pedagogical implications for English teaching.