The Application Of Discourse Markers In The Process Of Turn-taking In Modern Familly

Discourse marker is an important part of conversation. Turn is the basic unit ofconversation, and it’s also the place where the discourse marker to live in. Therefore,discourse marker has a natural dependence on turn. But there are few studies on discoursemarker in turn-taking. The studies on discourse markers in turn-taking mainly concentrate onclasses and interviews, but no one discussed from the perspective of American TV SeriesDiscourse markers frequently appear in daily conversation. Modern Family is composedof different scenes of daily conversation, thus providing discourse marker with a large context.This thesis is based on the theory of turn-taking and turn-taking rules and the dialogue formModern Family as corpus, summarizing and classifying the discourse marker and theapplication through methods of description and interpretation.This thesis attempts to study the condition and the function of discourse markers inturn-claiming, turn-holding and turn-yielding under the guidance of turn-taking rules.Through the analysis, we find discourse marker not only has the syntactic function, also itplays an important role in understanding the content and expressing communicator’s point ofview.Turn-claiming consists of normal turn-claiming and un-normal turn-claiming. Normalturn is divided into turn-opening and turn-claiming. Un-normal turn-claiming meansinterrupting the turn. From analyzing the condition of discourse markers in turn-claiming, weconclude that discourse marker perform the functions of initiating the conversation, breakingthe silence and adjusting language force. Discourse markers in turn-holding are divided intounending discourse marker and sonic-pause discourse marker. From analyzing the conditionof discourse markers in turn-holding, we conclude that discourse markers perform thefunctions of signaling out utterance coherence, emphasizing information and signaling outfurther explanation. Discourse markers in turn-yielding appear in two models. One is DM+interrogative sentence and the other is DM+declarative sentence. Form the analysis ofdiscourse markers we conclude that discourse markers perform the functions of implying theend of one’s talk and controlling the whole communication.Therefore, under the guidance of the turn-taking rules, communicators will use discoursemarkers to achieve the expected effect in order to achieve the certain purpose of communication. The study of discourse marker in turn-taking provides conversation analysiswith a new angle, and at the same time makes readers know the important role of discoursemarkers in dialogue and help English learners in China use discourse markers better.