A Study Of Pragmatic Functions Of Discourse Marker Well In Vanity Fair

Discourse markers refer to words and phrases that indicate the relationshipbetween an utterance and the prior discourse such as but, therefore, in conclusion,however, well, besides, so, after all and so on. The functions of discourse markerscan not be ignored since they play such an important role in daily communication,showing the discourse structure and expressing the speaker’s implication.Researchers adopt different approaches to analyze discourse markers and theirfunctions from different perspectives. According to previous studies, three mainapproaches have been established: the grammatical-pragmatic approach representedby Fraser, the coherence-based approach represented by Schiffrin and therelevance-theoretical approach represented by Blakemore.As a matter of fact, none of these three approaches perfectly interpret the use ofdiscourse markers. That is to say each approach has its own advantages anddisadvantages. But compared to the other two approaches, the relevance approach isthe most suitable and powerful to explain the use of discourse markers in the presentstudy and thus it is adopted as the theoretical foundation in this thesis.Among the large range of discourse markers, well is one of the most frequentlyused words in daily communication. Researchers analyze it from perspectives ofconversational implicature, pragmatics, translation and so on. It seems well has nolexical meaning as a discourse marker. In fact, well plays an important role becausecommunication can not be departed from speakers’ pragmatic meaning. The accurateuse of well can arouse and maintain hearers’ interest and make communication morevivid.Although researchers pay much attention to discourse markers in dailycommunication, few of them take literary works like novels, dramas and screenplays as corpus. Even if some touch on the study of discourse markers in literary works,most of them analyze discourse markers from the perspective of translation. Thus,based on Relevance Theory, this thesis intends to discuss pragmatic functions ofdiscourse marker well in the well-known novel Vanity Fair. Generally speaking, thisthesis adopts Relevance Theory as the theoretical foundation and Vanity Fair as thecorpus to discuss pragmatic functions of discourse marker well in this novel, usingmany examples to illustrate Relevance Theory can be used as a powerful tool toexplain discourse markers in literary works.In particular, this thesis analyzes the pragmatic functions of discourse markerwell in detail with many examples taken from Vanity Fair within the framework ofrelevance apporach. From the novel,25examples are collected to show differentpragmatic functions of well.Specifically speaking, the following questions will be addressed in this study:1) What are pragmatic functions of discourse marker well in Vanity Fair?2) In what position does discourse marker well occur?In conclusion, this thesis proves the appropriateness of relevance theory for thestudy of discourse markers and adds a detailed analytical example into the broadrelevance-theoretical framework of the study. This thesis is also intended to arousethe learners’ interest and awareness of the importance of these “small words” whichplay so important a role in our daily communication.