A Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Usage Of Discourse Marker You Know

Discourse markers are one of the common language phenomena in discourse interpretation, which results in the understanding of an utterance or constrains the comprehension of a discourse. Discourse markers are very important in communication. However, the study of DMs in China is not as extensive as that in other countries.This thesis investigates the Chinese students' usage of DM you know from the perspectives of the overall frequencies, collocations, positions, core meanings and especially pragmatic functions. The thesis aims to explore the similarities and differences in the use of you know between Chinese EFL learners and native speakers. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods, this thesis focuses on investigating the pragmatic functions of DM you know.With the help of wordsmith, we obtain the following findings: generally speaking, Chinese students do not use DM you know as often as native speakers do; Chinese learners can use DM you know in a proper way most of the time even though they use less you know than native speakers. Then the possible factors underlying the inappropriate usage of you know are discussed.