「主題不連續」是指說話者改變話題的情況。本論文首先分析會話主題的結構,以探討主題不連續現象的文法表現。研究發現當說話者要改變主題的時候,停頓會比較長,話語的自我修正也較多;說話者也使用表示時間、事件、人物改變的語言標記。至於內容方面,大約一半的新主題不必經由背景訊息引介而被直接談論。那些被背景訊息引介的新主題,引介方式很多,而最常使用的是問句形式,因為當其他說話者回應問題時,自然就參與討論新話題了。

This paper studies the structuring of conversational topics in order to examine the linguistic manifestation of topic discontinuity which arises when the speech participants start a new subject. Since the change of topic is an important event in discourse, the speaker who initiates the change is found to pause longer and produce more repairing utterances. Moreover, markers for time, event, and character discontinuity are also used at the topic-shift boundary. Concerning the content of the new subject, about half of the new topics are introduced immediately without background information. Alternatively, a new topic can be oriented by background information in various ways. The most common way is by asking questions because they typically invite other speakers to converse about the new subject.