Teacher Talk In Chinese College EFL Teaching—with Reference To Face Theory

Teacher talk is the language used by teachers in classroom. It is very important to classroom teaching, especially in English as a foreign language teaching classroom. This study is an analysis of teacher talk in Chinese college EFL teaching from the perspective of Face Theory. Goffman first introduces the concept of "face" and "face work", upon which Brown and Levinson have built the Face Theory. The Face Theory proposed by them serves as the most influential theory on politeness. Based on Brown and Levinson’s Face Theory, this study aims to analyze the students’ behaviors during classroom teaching and the influences of teacher talk over the students. The main purposes of this research are to manifest the importance of teachers’ awareness of students’ face wants and the necessity of saving students’ face. In addition, this study also intends to explore the politeness strategies used by EFL teachers in classroom teaching.In this study, the participants are the8EFL teachers and150non-English major sophomore students in a provincial university in Shandong Province. The main data-gathering instruments are classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. The data obtained are analyzed by social statistical software SPSS17.0version.With the aid of data collected through classroom observations, questionnaires about students’ view of teacher talk in EFL teaching and interviews on teachers’ standpoints about the Face Theory used in EFL teaching, this thesis reveals teachers’ awareness of Face Theory and their strategies of saving face in their classroom teaching. It also provides some strategies about how to preserve students’ face and build up their confidence as well as create a harmonious learning atmosphere. The main findings are as follows:First, most EFL teachers are aware of students’ face wants, thus they use some politeness strategies to save students’ face during classroom teaching. They realize that it is very important to protect students’ face. However, not all teachers are good at employing the politeness strategies systemically and flexibly. Second, the feedbacks that EFL teachers use in EFL classroom teaching can be categorized into six types, namely, simple approval, extension, meaning negotiation, explicit correction, recast and prompt. Although the feedbacks are of great variety, teachers unavoidably lack flexibility while using them. Third, the politeness strategies that EFL teachers have employed can be summarized from three aspects: strategies in instructions, strategies in questioning and strategies in feedback. However, teachers tend to use similar strategies under most circumstances. Sometimes, they fail to flexibly use effective strategies. Most teachers and students agree that the appropriate use of the politeness strategies could help to create a harmonious EFL classroom atmosphere and build the friendly relationship between teachers and students. As a result, the use of such strategic methods could improve students’ pragmatic competence and facilitate students’learning effectively as well.This study provides some guidance for EFL teachers to apply the Face Theory in their college EFL classroom teaching practice and foster the students’ consciousness of politeness in learning a foreign language so as to enhance the learning and teaching efficiency in the foreign language classroom.