A Relevance-theoretic Study Of The Constraining Functions Of Discourse Markers Employed By Talk Show Hosts

TV talk show has always enjoyed a widespread popularity in mass communication. Many scholars attempt to study the talk show program from various perspectives and find that hosts’language is unique and should be paid more attention. Discourse marker is one of the most frequently employed language devices. The previous studies show that little study has been conducted to the functions of discourse markers in specific situations. This study aims to explore constraining functions of discourse markers employed by talk show hosts.Within the framework of Relevance Theory, discourse markers are linguistic choices made by the speaker. When a discourse marker is employed by the speaker, it is an ostensive means that the speaker chooses to constrain the hearer’s understanding. For the hearers, it gives clues to the interpretation and inference of speakers’ utterances. The relevance of utterances shows the relation between contextual effects and processing effort. People always try to search for the maximal relevance with the least processing effort.With twenty transcriptions chosen from Piers Morgan Tonight, the present study adopts both quantitative and qualitative analysis from the relevance-theoretical perspective and aims to answer the following questions:What is the classification of discourse markers in hosts’ utterances in TV talk shows? How do discourse markers function to affect the interpretation of talk shows and impose constraints on comprehension? This study has discussed how discourse markers of different classes work to realize their constraining functions, and tried to testify that the constraining functions can be achieved through ways of how contextual effects result.The study goes further to offer a tentative classification of discourse markers from the collected data, and specifies the relationships of utterances which are linked by discourse markers with concrete examples. According to the study, new information introduced by elaborative markers, evidential markers and tag questions can strengthen existing assumptions; contrastive markers and topic-shifting markers can guide the hearer to eliminate existing assumptions; while inferential markers constrain the interpretation by combining with existing assumptions to yield new contextual implication. Additionally, a statistical analysis about the use frequency of different markers in terms of their constraining functions is made, and some findings are as follows:inferential markers are used by show host with the highest frequency; next come elaborative markers, evidential markers and tag questions; contrastive markers and topic-shifting markers are employed with a relatively low frequency.The present study sheds light on how the application of discourse markers helps the progress of talk shows. It not only has theoretical values of enriching our understanding of discourse markers, but also has practical implications for language teaching and other types of discourse. But there are also limitations needed to be improved in future studies.