iscourse markers fromdifferent approaches both abroad and in China were reviewed. Studies of discoursemarkers in western countries were illustrated from three different perspectives:Schiffrin’s Coherence, Fraser’s Pragmatic Approach, and Blackmore’s RelevanceApproach. The last part of this chapter was given to the introduction of publicspeaking, impromptu speeches, and the importance of using discourse markers inimpromptu speeches which were adopted as the present study’s linguistic data.
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2.2 Discourse Markers
Discourse markers have been comprehensively studied for the past two decades.However, no unified definition was given to label it due to the different theoreticalperspectives. Firstly, the terminology of discourse markers was developed through thebeginning of discourse markers analysis and changed in various ways based on theresearch purposes and perspectives. For instance, discourse markers have beendefined as pragmatic expressions (Erman, 1987), discourse connectives (Blakemore,1987), pragmatic operators (Ariel, 1994), discourse particles (Schourup,1985; Aijmer,2002), semantic conjuncts (Quirk, et al.,1985), sentence connectives (Halliday &Hasan, 1976), semantic connectives (Van Dijk,1979), cue words (Rouchota, 1996),discourse particles (Schourup, 1985), discourse connectives (Blakemore,1987, 1992,2002), conversational routines (Aijmer, 1996), pragmatic formatives (Fraser, 1988),pragmatic connectives (Van Dijk, 1985; Stubbs, 1983), etc. Thus, a large number ofterminologies appeared based on different research backgrounds, and even now thereis no unified terminology and definition have been illustrated.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ....25
3.1 Chapter Overview ....25
3.2 Coherence-Based Theory .......25
3.3 Discourse Markers and Local Coherence....28
3.4 Discourse Markers and Global Coherence.........29
3.5 Discourse Markers and Contextual Coherence .........30
3.6 Summary ....31
Chapter Four Research Methodology ......33
4.1 Research Design.......33
4.2 Research subjects .....33
4.3 Research Instrument........34
4.4 Research Questions .........35
4.5 Research Procedure.........35
4.6 Summary ....38
Chapter Five Results and Discussions .....39
5.1 Chapter Overview ....39
5.2 Results of Data Analysis ........39
5.3 Discussions .......51
5.4 Summary ....51
Chapter Five Results and Discussions
5.1 Chapter Overview
This chapter presented the results of the data analysis of discourse markers inthe impromptu speech given by the college students. Depending on the researchquestions, the author conducted the present study based on the theoretical frameworkand research methodology. The following sub-sections were the results of dataanalysis, which was divided into three parts based on three questions with discussions. Discourse markers have been studied in the various conversations, but rarelywere explored in the impromptu speeches. After the conduction of discourse markersannotation and analysis, the presence of discourse markers in the impromptu speechesturned out to be a coherence device in forming a context, helping EFL speakers toexpress their ideas, emotions, and opinions logically and making the audiencecoordinate their understanding with the speakers’ through connecting the prior andfollowing information. As Lenk (1998b) said that discourse markers were one kind ofverbal items which influenced and guided the hearers to understand the utterance.Moreover, Aijmer (1996:1-47) also agree
