| This thesis tries to study metapragmatic awareness of characters via discourse markers they have used in a movie. Based on the Relevance Theory raised by Sperber and Wilson, this thesis applies quantitative and qualitative analysis to answer three research questions as follows:(1) What are the most frequently used discourse markers in an English movie? (2) What kind of metapragmatic awareness do the discourse markers reveal? (3) What function do the analyses of metapragmatic awareness serve in movie reviews? After a careful study of American movie Before Sunrise, some results are listed as follows:(Ⅰ) In this film, the first 4 most-used discourse markers are and, you know, yeah and but.(Ⅱ) In different context, each marker has its own different pragmatic functions, and so is the metapragmatic awareness indicated by each marker. Discourse marker And can be used as a sequence marker to get a logical relevance, a delay marker to earn time and a contrast marker to create an easy communication atmosphere. You know can be used as an information reminder to emphasize the following information, a coherence marker to make a coherent discourse and an attitude marker to reveal speakers’ attitude. Yeah can be used as an affirmation marker to offer mutual affirmation, a question marker to raise questions and a buffering marker to save speakers or hearers’face. Lastly, but can be used as an info-comparison marker to create a contrastive effect, an info-modification marker to replenish more useful information and a discourse-continuation marker to deepen topics.(Ⅲ) During the process of analysis, discourse markers’ special functions to the whole film are found:Firstly, it helps to uncover characters’ hidden personalities. Secondly, it can inter-push plot development of films. Thirdly, it helps to analyze the theme of a film. |
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