A Study Of English Corner Conversations From The Perspective Of Pragmatics And Structures Analysis

People get involved in various kinds of conversations every day. Even from early times, there has been a large amount of research on these kinds of conversations. The previous research on conversations mainly focused on the conversations that happened in literary works, restaurant, court, hospitals, internet and classrooms. There are few studies on the conversations that occur in the English corner on university campus. However, English corner does play a critical role in English learning in universities of China, where English is taught and learned as the most important foreign language.Materials for the study are all naturally happened conversations recorded from the English corner. The conversations are all carefully listened to and transcribed. The analysis is carried out in a descriptive way. As a result, numbers for frequency and percentage are frequently used in the results of the study.Considering the importance of English corner in the process of English study, this thesis tends to give an overall analysis of the English corner conversation. The analysis is mainly carried out in two layers. First, the analysis focuses on the contents of the English corner conversations from the perspective of pragmatics, including turn, adjacency pair, interruption and insertion, change of topics, repetition and interrogative questions. It analyzes the relationship between conversational goals and pragmatic principles. The research also studies the relationship between conversational goals and conversation structure through the analysis of the structures of the English corner conversations. The discussion of repair structures and discourse markers are included in this thesis. The aim of the study is to reveal the characteristics of the English corner conversations and furthermore to give some suggestions for the participants of the English corner as well as English teachers in classroom teaching.Findings of the study show that the English corner conversations bear some special characteristics compared with the conversations that happen in other contexts. Such as, the topics of the English corner conversation are quite flexible and usually related to daily life. The exchange structure of the English corner conversations are found in various patterns. Repetitions, insertion, interruption and interrogative questions are found frequently occurred in the English corner conversations. And the pragmatic principles used fulfill the purpose of realizing the speaker's intention.This study also investigates the structures of the English corner conversations. Besides I-R and I-R-F pattern, there are some other types of exchange patterns occurring in the English corner conversation. What is more, repair structures and discourse markers are investigated in this thesis. Meaning-aiming repair structures and form-aiming repairs appear at totally different frequency in the English corner conversations. The high frequency of the meaning-aim repair structures shows that meaning is paid much more attention than form in the English corner conversations. Discourse markers play a significant role in English corner conversation. The author finds out that conversation structures are influenced by pragmatic principles. Participants of English corner make full use of different pragmatic principles to realize their conversational goals.Although taking part in the English corner is not the only way to improve one's English level, especially oral English, it is safe to say that English corner conversation plays an important role in English learning in China. By the research, the writer tries to find out the characteristics of English corner conversation and get some implications for English learning and teaching.