论文总字数：63462字
摘 要
教师话语不仅是教师执行教学计划的工具，同时也是学生进行语言输入的一个重要来源，因此它在组织课堂教学活动和学习者的第二语言习得过程中起着至关重要的作用。本文以对高中英语教师课堂话语的研究为基础，从言语行为理论出发，深层次分析高中英语教师课堂话语中的问候语、指令语、讲授与呈现以及评价与反馈语对于学生的课堂参与、情感参与以及认知参与的影响，以及教师如何利用课堂话语提高教学质量从而拉近师生之间的距离。
关键词：教师话语；言语行为理论；高中英语教师
Contents
- Introduction………………………………………………………………1
- Literature Review…………………………………………………………1
2.1 Research on classroom talk of English teachers in China…………..1
2.2 Research on classroom talk of English teachers abroad…………....3
3. Theoretical Basis of the Research……………………….....….……….....5
3.1 Austin’s speech act theory……………………………..………………….5
3.2 Searle’s theory of indirect speech act………………..………………………6
3.3 The essence of speech act theory……………………………………………7
4. Research Design…………………………………………………………...8
4.1 Research questions…………………………………………………………..8
4.2 Research methodology………………………………………………………9
4.3 Data collection………………………………………………………………9
4.4 Data analysis........................................................................................10
5. An Analysis of the Teacher Talk from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory...................................................................................10
5.1The distribution of teacher talk in classroom…................…......……10
5.2 Application of speech act theory in teacher talk.....................…...12
5.3 The factors influencing students’ classroom participation...........................15
5.4 General negative examples of teacher talk in classroom...............17
6. Suggestions on the Improvement of Teacher Talk........................18
6.1 Standards of the quality of teacher talk......................................20
6.2 Control on the difficulty of the problem...........................................21
6.3 Timely and effective evaluations..........................................................22
7.Conclusion ..............................................................................23
Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...26
1. Introduction
For Chinese learners, foreign language classroom supplies the most authentic environment for language learning. As the major source and medium of learners" target language input, teachers" discourse acts like a pivotal part in both classroom activities and learners" acquisition. By supervising and reflecting on their application of language, English teachers may create more possibilities for students" learning and classroom participation, and consequently achieve the overall success of senior high school English teaching. In order to make better application of the English teachers’ teacher talk, this paper will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of teacher teacher talk under the framework of speech act theory, summarizing the suggestions on the current English teachers’ discourse to motivate students’ recognition participation, emotional participation and class participation in English classes.
This paper is based on the approaches of class observation, student interviews and corpus analysis, observes the course of 4 English teachers in Qingjiang Senior High School, interviews 50 students, and asks them to point out their views and suggestions in terms of the current high school English class. The overall situation of quality demonstration class of high school English teacher"s teacher talk is explored. Based on the text corpus of real classroom audio and video transcription, this paper attempts to analyze the greetings, instructions, teaching and presentation, feedback and evaluation of English classroom teacher discourse in the perspective of speech act theory, aiming to grasp the cognitive, communicative and emotional functions of different types of teachers’ teacher talk from the macro level.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Research on classroom talk of English teachers in China
Compared with the research results of foreign language classroom teaching, the research on the discourse of teachers in foreign language classrooms in China started late, and it has gradually merged in the western countries after the 1980s. I will demonstrate it from the angle of following aspects:
In one aspect, the research related to teachers’ teacher talk of high school English teachers is classified. Speculative research on teacher discourse: Tang Yanyu and Liu Shaozhong (Tangamp;Liu 115) discussed the greetings, guidance, questioning and presentation functions of teacher discourse within the framework of speech act theory. He Anping (He 161) compared more than 20,000 words in the high school English class in the teacher"s spoken corpus according to the corpus lexical theory and computer automatic segmentation method. It is found that the teacher-student interaction has been significantly enhanced since the new curriculum reform. Tan Yanling (Tan 209) analyzed the three-step discourse in English classroom interaction, especially the function of feedback step and its significance in foreign language teaching. Cheng Xiaotang (Cheng 110) explores the authenticity of English teachers" teacher talk, and believes that the words used by English teachers in the classroom are as authentic, interactive, logical and normative as possible.
A literature review of teacher discourse: Yang Xueyan (Yang 53) reviews the Western research on teacher talk. She focuses on research objects, research instruments and research results. Yu Hong (Yu 67) comprehensively analyzed the research on the discourse of foreign language teachers in the domestic classroom environment. Based on reviewing the existing researches, it is pointed out that the study of teacher talk of foreign language teachers in China mainly focuses on the interactive characteristics of teacher discourse, and research Objects are also relatively concentrated on the higher education stage. Yan Guidong (Yan 213) discussed the research status of English teachers" teacher talk at home and abroad, and pointed out the achievements and inadequacies of teacher discourse research. Zhu Hongcui and Chen Liping (Zhuamp;Chen 115）made a clear analysis of the current situation of the researches on English teacher"s teacher talk validity from the perspectives of language characteristics, language functions and interactive features of effective English teachers’ teacher talk.
Empirical research on teacher discourse: Zhao Xiaohong (Zhao 198), Zhou Xing and Zhou Yun (Zhou 202), Liu Jiarong and Jiang Yuhong (Liuamp;Jiang 24) , all of these authors have conducted empirical research on different teacher-oriented and“student-centered” English classes. The topics of research involve teacher talk mode, interactive mode, teacher discourse, etc. Based on results of the empirical researches,, Hu Qingqiu et al. (Hu 22) probes the connection between teacher"s classroom questioning strategy, content as well as form and students" proactive engagement in classroom activities. Jiang Weishan (Jiang 53) studied the influence of the third round of foreign language classes on the output of students" speech, and pointed out that the third round of teachers in the second language classes can help students construct significant means and effective feedback of knowledge which provide learners with a large number of language output and opportunities to participate in classroom interaction. Zhu Hongcui (Zhu 15) conducted a survey and research on the effectiveness of teacher talk in high school English teachers, and found that the overall situation of effectiveness of high school English teachers’ teacher talk remain to be good.
2.2 Research on classroom talk of English teachers abroad
As an important research object in classroom education, the Western language teaching community get down to investigate and study the teacher"s teacher talk from the 1950s and 1960s. Early systematic research on teacher discourse was conducted on the discussion of discourse patterns. Representatively, the four-step framework of the teacher talk model proposed by Bellack in 1966, namely, construction, initiation, response and response, has an important impact on the subsequent teacher discourse research. Early in the 1970s, foreign scholars began the study on teacher"s discourse from various perspectives. Among the more influential are Flanders" teacher speech behavior analysis method, that is, teachers need to adjust and implement different teaching strategies according to students" classroom speech behavior.
Through in-depth observation, the system analyzes the interaction between teachers and students in the classroom, proposes the IRF mode of teacher discourse, and points out that teacher feedback is the key to the turn. Brock and Nunan et al. conducted a more profound study and discussion of the categories of questions (Brock amp; Nunan 101); In the 1980s, the research results were chiefly committed to the language research of teacher discourse. During this period, the development of the theory of second language acquisition, especially Krashen"s(Krashen 195) intelligibility input hypothesis theory, greatly promoted teacher discourse research. The researchers not only conducted a preliminary induction and classification of the teacher"s teaching discourse, but also conducted a large number of empirical studies.
These studies reveal the formal traits of the teaching language in the aspect of phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, texts, etc.. From the perspective of linguistics, the teaching language is one type of short, simplified, standardized language that adjusts to tone, pause, accent, vocabulary, grammar etc.and can be based on the learner"s authentic mastery at the speed of speech. At the same time, as an important means and tool for organizing and guiding second-language classroom activities, the functional characteristics of teacher discourse have gradually attracted the attention of researchers, and a large number of research methods for describing and understanding foreign language classrooms have begun to appear. Swain proposed a viewpoint that "understandable output is learned." Therefore, as a language for organizing and guiding students to proactively engage in various classroom activities, teacher discourse is becoming increasingly valuable, making English learners exchange information, express ideas and opportunities more actively and enable them to promote language acquisition through communication and meaningful negotiation.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some scholars began to analyze the interaction between specific classroom language behavior and second language acquisition, including all aspects of teacher-student discourse, classroom interaction process and teacher discourse such as the quantity of teachers’ teacher talk, the way of putting forward questions in the classroom, the type of questions, the mode of communication between teachers and students, and the evaluation and feedback given by the teachers. Long and Sato(Longamp;Sato 156) studied English teachers’ questions in classes. The result shows that there were more open questions and verification questions in the question types, and fewer confirmation verification and clarification requests. Ellis also pointed out that teachers can use clarification requirements to give learners more time and opportunities to negotiate meaningfully in response to communication failures in the classroom language environment. Pica(Pica 83) compares the teacher-student interaction mode and the group interaction mode with the help of the teacher in the classroom. It analyzes all the refactoring steps that occur, such as confirming verification, understanding verification, and clarification of the request, indicating that it occurs in the group mode. The amount of interactive negotiation is bigger than the teacher-student model under the guidance of the teacher. At the same time, Pica Young and Doughty(Doughty 96) studied the listening comprehension of 16 English-speaking learners in different input environments, and found that interactively negotiated input can promote language learning more than direct input adjustments. Ellis, Tanaka, and Yamazaki (Ellis, Tanaka and Yamazaki 184)studied the effects of interactive negotiation on vocabulary acquisition, and found that the same result----the input of the negotiated interaction promoted language learning more than the direct input adjustment and correction of the input. In addition to all-sided input, there may be else causes or processes that promote language acquisition. Lyster and Ranta(Lysteramp;Ranta 77) pointed out: “Understandable output requires feedback from teachers or peers. Feedback prompts the speaker to find problems in their own language, and then corrects those that are not used.”
In terms of English teaching, domestic and foreign scholars have in-depth and detailed research on teachers" teacher talk, which provides guidance for teachers who are engaged in English teaching in the first line to use the classroom language appropriately, and also for the various parts of the English teacher"s teacher talk, especially feedback. The in-depth study of the language has laid a particular basis in theory and practice.
3. Theoretical Basis of the Research
3.1 Austin’s speech act theory
Speech act theory is a philosophical theory of language which was proposed by Austin from the United Kingdom. Austin believes that language is a type of specific action of human beings. People can"t manage it without speech and writing during the course of actual interaction. The central topic of the philosophy of language analysis should be set up to study the nature and internal logic of such speech acts. Speech act is the smallest unit of meaning and human communication, which has three types: verb-deductive behavior, that is, utilizing words to express certain ideas; linguistic behavior, that is, spoken sentences make sense to some extent; speech-acting behavior, that is, making use of a statement to produce some certain effect. To accomplish a linguistic behavior must be done by completing a verb-like behavior, so the linguistic behavior and the linguistic behavior are both intertwined and bounded, because many verb-like behaviors do not simultaneously play the same role as linguistic behavior. There also exist evident distinctions between the linguistic behavior and the verb-like behavior. The effect of the former one is persuasive when the effect of the posterior one is mandatory.
3.2 Searle’s theory of indirect speech act
As an outstanding successor to Austin"s speech act theory, the American philosopher Searle inherited, revised and developed Austin"s point of view. He emphasized the need to grasp the inner relationship between the three speech acts and believed that there is no insurmountable relationship between the three acts. On the contrary, they depend on each other and convert to each other under the background of particular terms. Therefore, he creatively proposed the theory of indirect speech act that plays an important role in language communication, and pushed the study of speech act to a broader space.
According to Searle"s definition, indirect speech acts refer to the situation of “backstair execution of another illocutionary act by virtue of an illocutionary act. He believes that when the speaker directly reflects his true meaning through the form and denotation of the expression. When communicating intentions, he implements direct speech acts; when the speaker"s discourse meaning does not coincide with the literal meaning, he implements indirect extra-verbal behavior, and at the same time implements the primary illocutionary act and the secondary utterance behavior. The elementary illocution reflects the true intention of the speaker, while the secondary illocution is the denotation of the expression. It is the means by which the elementary illocutionary act is achieved. The shortcoming of Austin’s view is that it only pays attention to the primary speech act but ignores the investigation and the latter speech act.
According to the theory of indirect speech act, each discourse event represents a speech act, but sometimes this behavior is more direct and sometimes more indirect. However, most of the implementation of actual language behavior is not direct. Indirect speech acts generally exist in the use of language, and thus have certain guiding significance. Searle pointed out that the key problem to be solved by indirect speech act theory is: how to accurately understand a particular indirect speech act when the hearer receives a particular discourse referring to some other intent. Specifically, to achieve the success of indirect speech communication, the speaker must firstly learn how to express the purpose or intention that he really wants to convey through the “literal power” of the discourse, which is called “indirect language power” or “speaking power”. As a listener, you should understand how to derive its "indirect language power" from the speaker"s "literal power."
The indirect speech act theory illustrates the inconsistency and non-correspondence between the surface structure and deep structure of the discourse; the authentic implication and the speaker"s intention displays the various relations between the structure and role of the language. Its proposal is an important supplement to Austin"s viewpoint. It provides a strong theoretical basis for effectively explaining the phenomenon that language forms and functions do not match, enhances the explanatory power of speech act theory, and makes a sound and systematic development of speech act theory.
3.3 The essence of speech act theory
Austin and Searle"s belief in speech act theory is that human language has the natural function of communication, and the true intention and ultimate goal of people learning language is to act better with language. As a social individual, every sentence means imposing an action on other individuals, and accurately understanding and grasping the essence of language is a prerequisite for successful speech act. As a special reflection of social environment, the school is an surroundings in which teachers and students hang out all along. Therefore, the teacher"s discourse, including feedback language, has distinct social functions and a crucial influence on learners" cognition and emotion. Each time a teacher implements a speech act in the classroom, he also completes three sub-verbal behaviors, namely, “pointing to words”, “doing things by words” and “making things by words”. The true intention and purpose behind them are to good to promote learning and achieve teaching. Therefore, how to be responsible for their classroom language behavior, to achieve success in classroom communication and how to choose the appropriate language according to different contexts under the guidance of speech act theory, to better act by words, to make things happen, needs every teacher to learn and reflect on.
- Research Design
4.1 Research questions
There have been a great amount of researchers committed themselves to the study of teachers’ teacher talk due to its great significance not only to students but also to English learning. However, the majority of them do the studies focusing on the traits of discourse and classifications of students’ engagement. Few scholars study the English teacher"s teacher talk’s important influence on students’ learning emotions, class participation and so on. These studies are not rooted in the ordinary English classroom, and the importance in theory is greater than the importance in practice. In this context, this study proposes the following three concrete questions to do researches on the concrete impact of senior high school English teachers" teacher talk on students" involvement in classes: (1)What’s the specific situation of students" participation in classroom behavior, emotions and recognition? What’s the specific situation of English teachers" utilization of greetings, instructions, feedback and presentations in high school? (2) Do English teachers" classroom greetings, instructions, feedback and presentations have an impact on students" participation in classroom behavior, emotions and cognition?(3) What types of teacher talks do English teachers recommend students to actively get involved in the classroom? Which type of teacher talk leads students to negatively get involved in the classroom?
4.2 Research methodology
This paper research is based on the methods of classroom observation, student interviews and corpus analysis, observing the course of 4 English teachers in Qingjiang Senior High School, interviewing 50 students, and asks them to point out their views and suggestions in terms of the current high school English class. The overall situation of teacher"s teacher talk in high school is explored. Based on the text corpus of real classroom audio and video transcription, this paper attempts to analyze the greetings, instructions, teaching and presentation, feedback and evaluation of English classroom teacher discourse in the perspective of speech act theory, aiming to grasp the cognitive, communicative and emotional functions of different types of teachers’ teacher talk from the macro level. As a result, we can summarize the effective suggestions for improving teachers" teacher talk, provide effective help for students to participate in classroom participation, emotional participation and cognitive participation, and verify the explanatory power of speech acts. In this study, the research mainly focused on the impacts of teachers’ discourse on students’ participation in class, interaction between teacher and students and the process of knowledge acquisition. In order not to hinder the fairness of the research, we informed the four teachers ahead of time for this observation but required them not to alter the procedure and style of their classes.
4.3 Data collection
In order to further understand the use of high school English classroom teachers and students" classroom participation, four English teachers and 12 randomly selected students from Qingjiang Senior High school were interviewed. In the interview process, in order to record the interview results more accurately and meticulously, the author also recorded the recordings while making the recordings as a supplement to the notes. Classroom observations began on February 25, 2019 and ended on April 30. A total of 49 classes of four English teachers were selected and 30 lessons were selected for analysis. All classroom observations were conducted in a natural classroom teaching environment and did not disclose the purpose of the lectures to the lecturers. So the content taught by the lecture teacher is based on the progress of the school"s teaching schedule, and did not deliberately change the teaching content because of the lecture.
4.4 Data analysis
In the data analysis, a comprehensive analysis of the data obtained from classroom observation and recording, as well as interviews between teachers and students was conducted to ensure the reliability of the research results. The data includes the following:
1. Statistical analysis of descriptive samples: mainly through frequency statistics, the average number describes the use of English teachers" teacher talk and the participation of students in class.
2. Analysis of the interaction of students" behavioral participation, emotional participation and cognitive participation in English classrooms;
3. Correlation analysis of English teachers" teacher talk and student participation in class;The specific impact of English teachers" teacher talk on students" participation in class.
5.An Analysis of the Teacher Talk from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory
5.1 The distribution of teacher talk in classroom
The characteristics of English teaching language are reflected in different forms of English teaching language. English teaching languages generally include four types: classroom English; instructional English; teacher-student interaction; teacher feedback English.
teacher talk often has fixed topics and sentence patterns in accordance with different stages different projects, and different environments of classroom activities, such as teachers" greetings, advice, orders, suggestions and requests to students. Teachers can’t be the sole character in class. The main character of the class is the students. The teachers are the designers, organizers and facilitators of the class activities. Regardless of whether the classroom teaching is successful or not, there must be a form of language input for organizing classroom activities, such as greetings, sub-groups, assignment tasks, etc., so the classroom organization language is the most fundamental category of teachers’ discourse as well as the basic guarantee for the smooth progress of classroom teaching. Classroom organizational terms should not have a fixed pattern, which varies according to the teacher"s habits, classroom atmosphere, and student level. A single, fixed model will only greatly reduce the vividness and fun of the classroom. In the long run, students will feel bored.
The language of instruction is the language of the teacher at the time of interpreting vocabulary, sentence structure and passage. It is the dominant method of information accepted by students. The content of the teacher"s explanation is mainly based on the following aspects: the content of the text, the meaning of the words and phrases, the structure of the sentences, and the meaning of the sentences. Nowadays, English teaching is mainly centered on teachers, which is the fundamental reason for the emergence of teachers" discourse. Too much explanation will ineluctably allow students to overly rely on teachers when learning language, making the goals of language learning difficult to obtain. Therefore, teachers should guide students to be involved in a vast scope of language communication activities.
Teacher-student conversation is the language used for various conversations, greetings, and arguments between teachers and students in the classroom. The correct use of this language will inspire students to engage in the classroom interaction more proactively. In classroom communication, questions and answers are used extensively. Because English teaching is based on verbal practice, question and answer is the most expedient method in actual exercise. The characteristic of the problem language is actually to control the answer, which is the practice point of the problem. Language knowledge questions refer to the meanings and sentences involved in meaning of words and phrases and sentence structure. There are two kinds of comprehension questions: one is literal understanding, which involves in the comprehension of a specific fact in the passage; the second is reasoning and understanding, which involves in the main ideas, text structure, type and comprehension of the author"s preference in the text. In order to cultivate students" knacks to have conversations in English, both questions are essential.
Apart from classroom language, teacher discourse also contains feedback on student participation and embarrassment. Teacher feedback is functionally grouped into two types: pessimistic feedback and negative feedback. Pessimistic feedback involves in the utilization of "Good", "Excellent", "Right", "Okay" and other certain terms, expressing appreciation and recognition for the students" answers. Negative feedback generally consists of three aspects: neglecting the student"s answer, that is, the teacher does not praise a student unless the student answers correctly: criticism, such as direct criticism "You"re wrong.", "No", "Nonsense", etc., or indirect criticism, Such as "I"m so disappointed at that.", "You always discourage me", "How can you come up with such an answer?", etc.; eagerness to correct the mistakes in the students" voice, grammar, and words, interrupting the students when they are answering questions, which is easy to defeat the confidence of the students. Psychologically, negative feedback from teachers often makes students feel ashamed and puts them in a passive position, thus they will lose the courage and confidence pf learning. From a linguistic point of view, it is still unknown whether to interrupt the student"s answer to correct the linguistic error is right or not, but at least, it breaks the fluency of the student"s language.
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