A Cognitive Study On Classroom Questioning

Classroom questioning has long been the central subject of teaching theory. According to the teaching theory, it is believed that questioning, as an effective way of teaching, plays an important role in classroom instruction, which has a direct impact on the quality of classroom instruction. In order to find out the patterns of questioning, researchers have explored from various perspectives. However, most of the current studies are based on the inquiry of behavioral patterns, ignoring the relationship between thought and language. As a result, it is difficult to give a set of theoretical explanations.In fact, the questioning behavior of a teacher in class must be accomplished in speech forms, and there are some certain laws of cognition hidden behind the speech patterns due to the relationship between language and thought. Inquiry into these laws is to provide a speech direction to questioning, and furthermore, to provide a new method of making teaching more effective and developing students' creativities.From the perspective of pragmatic of cognition, we see the possibility.Based on the speech act theory, our investigation on classroom questioning chooses the pragmatic perspective. It is believed that speech acts are characterized by three features: objective, dialogue, and tactful. Under the circumstances of thought instruction, dialogue and tactic in the classroom are determined by the main objective of teaching — thought activation. Classroom questions are non-real questions based on direct speech acts, which mainly function as thought activation. Any practice of speech act must be satisfied by some certain pragmatic requirements. The pragmatic categorization and positioning of non-real questions should also be satisfied by three pragmatic requirements: the role of answerer, the aim and function, and the problem. Firstly, the role of answerer determines that thought activation is the essence of the cooperation principle in classroom dialogue. Secondly, the aim and function determines that thought activation is the primary objective of classroom...