| Discourse markers are a special linguistic phenomenon which frequently appears in daily linguistic communication. Different from common linguistic forms, they appear in more than one syntactic form such as words, phrases or clauses. And they do not contribute to the semantic content of discourse because usually they have a procedural meaning instead of conceptual meaning in discourse; whereas, they mark and manipulate the construction and interpretation of discourse. In traditional linguistics, discourse markers are regarded as a form of linguistic detritus which is optional and redundant, therefore few scholars paid their attention to them. However, with the development of discourse analysis in recent decades, scholars gradually realize the importance of discourse markers in linguistic communication.So far, the research on discourse markers has obtained a relatively great progress both at home and abroad. Some scholars have explored the special linguistic phenomenon from the perspectives of syntactics, semantics, pragmatics and cognition. While, there is still no consensus reached on the fundamental issues concerning discourse markers, such as their definition, classification, functions and so on; and no systematic theoretical framework has been formed. Moreover, a large part of the researches are theoretical researches on the discourse markers in common linguistic communication rather than empirical researches on discourse markers in some specific linguistic communication. Therefore, an empirical research on discourse markers in some specific communications is quite significant.Based on the data collected from American native news blogs, the thesis aims to make an empirical research on English discourse markers in the specific linguistic communication on news blogs. The linguistic communication on news blogs is a newly-emerging communication form which differentiates from traditional linguistic communication in the communicative context,the way of communication and so on. As a result, the application of discourse markers in the form of communication must be characterized by some features which are worth close attention. The thesis, taking Bruce Fraser’s views on discourse markers as a theoretical base, adopts an integrated quantitative and qualitative method to research the application of discourse markers in the linguistic communication on news blogs. It conducts a work on the identification, calculation and classification of discourse markers in the linguistic communication, makes a contrastive analysis on the distribution of individual discourse markers and different types of discourse markers, discusses the specific functions of different types of discourse markers applied in the linguistic communication, and explores the factors that affect the application of discourse markers in the form of communication.The research indicates that in the linguistic communication on news blogs, relatively simple, informal and colloquial discourse markers are applied more than the relatively formal and complicated discourse markers; and among all the different types of discourse markers applied in the form of communication, collateral and contrastive markers enjoy a higher frequency while topic change markers enjoys the lowest. In addition to the distribution, the research also shows that collateral and contrastive markers mainly perform the functions of helping speakers express their opinions, instructing the interpretation of discourse and facilitating the achievement of the communication in the specific communication, whereas topic management makers usually performs the function of changing the communicative topic. Concerning these features popping out in the application of discourse markers in the communication, the thesis makes an detailed exploration, and find out that the free and open context, the communicative intention and the generality and flexibility of some discourse markers are the major factors that affects the application of discourse markers in the linguistic communication on news blogs. |
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