The Corpus-based Study Of The Pragmatic Marker I Think Used By The English Majors

Pragmatic markers (hereafter abbreviated as PMs) are the words or expressions thatcan provide guidance for the comprehension of utterance or constraint understanding ofthe discourse in the communication. PMs can convey rich pragmatic information and arewidely used in the verbal communication. The appropriate use of PMs will facilitate ourunderstanding of the speaker s meaning in the conversation and make dailycommunication go on successfully.The thesis chooses the frequently used PM I think as a case study aiming to give adetailed analysis on how Chinese English majors use this PM in the spoken English.According to the dictionaries and previous research, the author summarizes sevenpragmatic functions of I think. This thesis adopts the corpus-based method and usesSECCL2.0which is a learner corpus of oral test for English majors. From SECCL2.0theauthor finds that all the seven pragmatic functions of I think are covered, and someEnglish majors use I think in a redundant way while others fail to use it appropriately.The reasons may lie in language proficiency, negative pragmatic transfer and anxiety inthe examination. In addition, some variants of I think like I still think are picked out anddiscussed. It is discovered that these variants appear in certain circumstances to reinforcethe pragmatic functions of I think.This study emphasizes the importance of PMs in the oral English. The study of one ofthe PMs I think, in a sense, reflects Chinese English learners pragmatic competence. Itmay have some implications for oral English learning and teaching.