A Contrastive Study On The Use Of Discourse Markers By Chinese And American College Teachers From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The purpose of this study is to reveal the differences in the frequency of discourse markers(DMs)used by Chinese and American college teachers and explore the pragmatic functions of the most frequently used DM.In recent years,scholars from home and abroad have done a detailed and systematic research on DMs.According to the existing literature on DMs,research on DMs has covered various fields,including listening,reading,writing,language teaching,discourse analysis,and the analysis of pragmatic functions.Moreover,the author also reviews the previous studies on DMs used by teachers,and the results show that little research has been conducted on this aspect.This paper uses the Relevance Theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson as the theoretical framework.The author selected eight teachers from the websites of Net Ease Open Course and the I-Course,with the number of four Chinese and American college teachers respectively.After recording eight online courses taught by the eight teachers,the author constructed two corpora: Chinese College Teachers Corpus(CCTC)and American College Teachers Corpus(ACTC).By using the research tool Ant Conc(3.5.8)and the statistical tool Loglikelihood and Chi-square Calculator 1.0.,the author intends to answer the following questions:1.Are there any differences in the frequencies of DMs used by Chinese and American college teachers? If yes,what are the differences? And what are the reasons behind the differences?2.What are the functions of the most frequently used DM by Chinese and American college teachers?Results show that there is no significant difference in the overall frequency of DMs used by Chinese and American college teachers.However,there are significant differences in the frequencies of DMs across different categories.Chinese college teachers have overused DMs introducing contextual implications,and underused DMs strengthening existing assumptions and DMs contradicting existing assumptions.Additionally,the majority of individual DMs among the three categories show significant differences in frequency across the two corpora.DMs okay,I think,and actually have the biggest significant difference in frequency in DMs introducing contextual implications,DMs strengthening existing assumptions,and DMs contradicting existing assumptions respectively.The reasons for that may be the transfer of the native language,cultural differences,the influence of teaching contents,and the use of the avoidance strategy.In addition,and is the most frequently used DM by Chinese and American college teachers.It has the functions of presenting relationships,supplementing information,modifying information,and shifting topics.Moreover,American college teachers have used and more frequently in supplementing information compared with Chinese college teachers,which could be the phenomenon of pet phrase.This study contributes to attracting teachers’ attention to DMs in oral English.It reveals the important role of DMs in signaling context,which presents that DMs are of crucial importance in discourse comprehension.Through contrastive analysis,it is helpful to make Chinese college teachers reflect on the appropriateness of their use of DMs.