A Study On The Pragmatic Functions Of DM I Mean In The Talk Show From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Discourse markers are a very common language phenomenon in daily communication. On the surface, they seem to be dispensable, but they have an irreplaceable effect on actual verbal communication. In recent years, discourse markers have been the hot topic for pragmatics and discourse analysis. In general, there are four approaches of the studies on discourse markers: the coherence- based approach represented by Schiffrin, the grammaticalpragmatic approach by Fraser, the cognitive-pragmatic approach by Blakemore and the cultural linguistics approach by Palmer. The most worth mentioning is that Blakemore makes uses of the Relevance Theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson to study discourse markers. She thinks that discourse markers are a kind of ostensive information provided by the speaker. The listener can take advantage of discourse markers to infer and find the optimal relevance. Thus, the listener can get the communicative intention and achieve a successful communication at the cost of least processing efforts.Although there have been many scholars studying discourse markers, there are few scholars specifically studying a particular discourse marker in details, let alone the study of the pragmatic function of I mean in a specific context. In comparison with other corpus, the host and the guests’ use of the language in talk show program is authentic and is suitable for characteristics of daily communication. Given all this, there are two research questions in this thesis. The first one is on the exploration of the pragmatic functions of DM I mean in Ellen Show from the perspective of Relevance Theory. The second one is on the analysis of how the utterances in Ellen Show achieve optimal relevance by using discourse marker I mean.This study shows that discourse marker I mean in Ellen Show has not only the information function such as reminding information, modification of the information, supplementary explanation, transformation of the description, filling blanks and topicshifting, but also the emotion function to express speaker’s happiness, hesitation, jokes, affection or hatred, comfort, surprise, thanks and admiration emotion. What’s important is these functions can effectively help the hearer reduce the number of assumptions, and find the optimal relevance. Thus, the hearer can understand the speaker’s real communicative intention.This study not only enriches the analyses of discourse markers, but also proves the strong interpretability of the Relevance Theory and gives certain enlightements to the study of the pragmatic functions of discourse markers. The innovation of this study lies in putting more emphasis on the emotion functions of I mean in a specific context and illustrating its importance in the process of utterances interpretation.