The Textual Function Of Discourse Markers In EFL Class

During the past 30 years since Halliday and Hasan's (1976) Cohesion in English and 19 years since Schiffrin's (1987) Discourse Markers got published, the study of discourse markers has turned into a"growth industry"(Fraser, 1999) in linguistics. Nevertheless, the study of discourse markers does not construe a unitary approach. Names, properties, classifications and functions are the most basic divergences among the scholars engaged in describing discourse markers. Existing study indicates that discourse markers have three features: detachability of discourse markers, semantic colorlessness of discourse markers, and pragmatic motivation of discourse markers. Discourse marker can be the most widely spread concept within the literature. However it has been applied in both broad and narrow senses instead of only a change of terminology. This term will be adopted and be studied in its broad sense in the thesis.Textual function is a prominent part of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL). The thesis analyzes, explores and discusses the Textual Function of discourse markers in EFL class within the framework of Textual Function Theory of SFL majorly from the theoretical visual angle of Textual Function, Information Function and Cohesion System, mingled with Context Theory and some viewpoints of socialinguistics, adopting the qualitative approach, and taking for the corpus the recorded material transcribed from several EFL classes.The thesis aims to ascertain whether learners grasp the ideas of teachers by the assisting of DMs so that they can adjust and tailor their better instruction methods to suit learners'needs. Given the pervasiveness of discourse markers, it makes sense grasping the employment of discourse markers is essential for learners in EFL class.