School of Humanity and Law,

Abstract

Under the framework of relevance theory, this paper deals with the textual function of discourse markers (DMs). How do DMs make the text coherent? What are the principles behind it? Specifically this paper analyses DMs within the framework of Relevance Theory, including the motivation of DMs and their textual function. DMs function to influence utterance interpretation in a cognitive way in terms of the essentials of Relevance Theory and their employment is likely to provide the hearer with procedural guidelines for searching for optimal relevance, and consequently cast constraints upon his interpretation.