Analysis On The Pragmatic Function Of Vagueness In Teacher Talk In College English Classroom

This thesis probes into the pragmatic functions of vague teacher talk in Chinese college English classroom (CCEC) by way of conducting quantitative and qualitative studies on data deprived from empirical collection. The researches cover wide spheres of vague teacher talk including its background information, pragmatic functions as well as acting factors which influencing its application with the purpose of summarizing the implications for teachers of English to improve their strategies of employing vague language.This thesis chooses teachers of English as well as non-English major students (from Grade 2008 and Grade 2009) in Xi'an Technological University as research object. Qualitative descriptions on interviews and quantitative analyses on questionnaires are implemented as tangible testimony of the deficiency of current relevant researches; Besides, by means of describing audio records collected from authentic CCEC, the applicability of Channell (2000)'s ten pragmatic functions of vague language in every concrete teaching process is verified explicitly. In addition, the importance sequencing of pragmatic vague teacher talk, as well as factor analyses involving the differences in courses, teachers and students is distilled based on statistics on questionnaires and audio records.The findings of this research suggest that study of vague teacher talk can be exploited by teachers of English to back up their understanding of vague teacher talk and to improve their strategy of employing vague teacher talk pedagogically.