A Discourse Analysis Of English Teachers’ Feedback Discourse Based On Appraisal Theory

Teachers’ classroom discourse is an indispensable part of the classroom process.As a kind of teachers’ classroom discourse,feedback discourse conveys teachers’ evaluation and feedback on students’ classroom performance and ability.It is of great significance to improve the teaching effect.However,the previous studies on teachers’ classroom discourse mainly focused on quantity,speed and language characteristics,and less on the impact of interpersonal relationship and emotional factors contained in teachers’ feedback on English classroom interaction and students’ learning effect.Therefore,based on the appraisal theory,this thesis analyzes the attitude resources in teachers’ feedback,in order to provide suggestions for English teachers to improve English teaching.This research adopts classroom observation and discourse analysis to study the ministry level excellent English demonstration courses in the national public service platform of educational resources——One Good Lesson per Teacher and One Outstanding Teacher per Lesson(OGLPT).Ten recordings of high school English classes have been collected and transcribed to form the research corpus.With the help of corpus software UAM Corpus Toll,the distribution and application of the three subsystems of attitude resources in teachers’ feedback have been annotated and counted so as to analyze how teachers use the attitude resources to construct classroom feedback to improve students’ English learning.It provides suggestions for English teachers to promote teaching quality.Finally,the following conclusions are drawn:Teachers’ feedback in English classes has various forms and includes a large number of attitude resources.In the subcategories of attitude system,judgment resource occupies the first place with the percentage of 57.05%,which followed by appreciation resource with that of 28.21%,and the last is affect resource with that of 14.74%.The study found that the appropriate use of attitude resources in teachers’ feedback can promote students’ utterance output and improve students’ self-confidence in English learning.(1)Judgment resources: Teachers usually choose positive judgment resources to give positive feedback on students’ performance whether they are excellent,outstanding,brave or confident so as to enhance students’ self-confidence and promote students’ utterance output.Sometimes negative judgment resources are used to evaluate the characters and events in teaching materials.It is helpful for students to establish correct values.(2)Appreciation resources: Teachers usually use positive appreciation resources to give positive feedback to the answers and opinions given by students or point out students’ mistakes indirectly,so as to enhance students’ self-confidence,promote students’ enthusiasm for classroom participation and improve teaching effect.(3)Affect resources: Teachers sometimes use affect resources to express their trust,gratitude and encouragement to students in English classroom.It is helpful to shorten the distance between teachers and students and create a harmonious classroom atmosphere.