On The Use Of Vague Language In English-Language Teachers' Talk

Since the 1970's, scholars from various countries began to concentrate on the teacher talk, the results embodied in the effectiveness of teacher talk. With the development of the research, people's interests on main object has been widen from the teacher talk into its different levels. In the use of teacher talk, the vague language widely exists. In recent years, some scholars started to combine the vague language and teachers talk to analyze their functions and applications in teaching, but the comments only focused on the theory and qualitative analysis. Very a few scholars made the quantitative analysis on vague language in the actual application of the teacher talk. Based on the research background above, the author makes a more systematic analysis on the phenomenon and function of the vague language in the teacher talk with a view to provide deeper knowledge and understanding of the theory.In this paper, based on the case study of Foreign Languages teachers in Shanxi Agricultural University English Department, with the methods of questionnaires, interviews and class observation-diaries, the author tries to discuss the following questions:(1) How about the attitudes of the working teachers' on the application of the vague language in teacher talk? (2) What are the language tool and levels of the realization of the vague language in teacher talk? (3) What are the pragmatic functions of the vague language in teacher talk? What is the impact caused by the pragmatic functions on the students'language learning? The quantitative data of the survey are carefully discussed and some are conducted by the SPSS. The results show that:(1) The vague language in teacher talk can have the function of saving the students' face, stimulating their learning motivation and promoting the quality of teacher talk, which are benefit for building a new type of student-centered teaching model. (2) Based on language linguistics units, the vague language in teacher talk can be achieved through the phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, and discourse levels. (3) The vast majority of teachers are supportive to the vague language in teacher talk but also indicate that the level of their practical application need improving. Through the comparison of parallel classes and found that the students in the experimental class have the great increase on English learning motivation and pragmatic ability.This article includes the following five chapters:The Chapter One is an introduction which briefly introduces the research background of the vague language in teacher talk. Teacher talk is the major source of the language input to the student and has obvious influence on students'second language learning and output, therefore it has aroused much attention. The vague language is a common linguistic phenomenon which widely spreads in the application of the teacher talk. In order to make better use of vague language to improve the quality of teacher talk, and ultimately improve teaching effectiveness, this paper presents the empirical study and the relevant analysis with the view to richen the theory.Chapter Two is a literature review. The retrospect of the domestic and foreign researchers on teacher talk and the vague language, the summary on the sum of its gains and losses help the author raise the opinion that we should conduct the quantitative data analysis on the issue on the base of the previous research and combine with teaching experience of teachers in order to improve the theory.Chapter Three is the research survey.The research methods are discussed which includes questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation. When the author introduces questionnaire, the purpose,the design and the way to collect data are introduced. Through the direct payment and e-mail distribution, the data obtained are statistical analyzed and some are conducted by the SPSS. In the course of the study, the significant differences in the use of the vague language in teacher talk appears in foreign teachers and Chinese English teachers with the different teaching years. In order to further understand the causes of the differences, the author choose the typical object and interviews them representatively. Lastly the author assigns students to observe the real classroom situation when the vague language, in teacher talk realize and truly record the communication between the teachers and the students in their diaries. The two diaries are listed to reflect the variety of the vague language in teacher talk. And the author also keeps teaching diaries to compare the students'change which may reflect the result of vague language in teacher talk.Chapter Four discusses the results of the third chapter. It is proved that the vast majority of teachers think that the vague language in teacher talk is positive for teaching, but its actual capacity needs to be improved. The correlation analysis processed by the SPSS shows that the appropriate use of the vague language in teacher talk has the obvious positive correlation with the students' active response. By comparing the observed and recorded results of the performance of the students on the classes, the increase of students' performance in the classroom and their proficiency of English is comparatively rapid. All these can prove that the vague language in teacher talk is benefit for the students' English implicit learning.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the article. It sums up the significance of the results of this study, also points out the deficiencies and contributes to the future research direction.In conclusion, this study is an attempt to the research on the teacher talk and has the theoretical and practical significance. The quantitative analysis of this empirical study allows us to broaden the study of vague language areas to increase the positiveness of the research. It will promote the communication skills and language teaching. The traditional foreign language teaching tends to emphasize the precision of the language, but because of the nature of language and the special characters of the second language, the vague language in teacher talk will avoidably appear and to master the skills to use it will greatly increase the quality of the teacher talk. By analyzing the vague language in teacher talk, this paper will be the reference and enlightenment on communication skills, language teaching especially the implicit teaching to students'English.