A Study Of Topic Shifts In Casual English Conversations

Conversation is one of the most important means for people to communicate with each other. In one conversation there may be several topics or even sub-topics and some topics which tend to change into other topics but have no connection with the previous topic. Topic is one of the most important aspects in conversation analysis, but it is also one of the most controversial notions in language study. The literature on topic is a lot, but comparatively, works on the markers of topic shift in topic development process is not much.The present study examines the marked topic shifts based on the Corpus of American Soap Operas (SOAP) and the Chinese Learner Spoken English Corpus (COLSEC). The dissertation provides a systematic analysis of topic shift and different types of realization of topic shift. The comparative study of these two corpora presents conspicuous evidence that native speakers tend to use various markers in different types of shifts in this way their talk easier to be understood or minimize hesitation, repetition or avoid misunderstanding. On the contrary, Chinese English learners lack the necessary skills of using these devices, which may cause incoherence, misunderstanding, pauses or even abruption. The systematic studies of topic shifts may be beneficial to Chinese English learners, and it is hoped that this dissertation could enhance learners’awareness in topic shifting so as to promote their oral English proficiency.