An Iconic Analysis Of Teacher Talk For English Majors

Teacher Talk (TT for short) refers to the language that teachers use to organize andconduct teaching. Under many circumstances, it refers to teachers’ language in foreignlanguage or second language teaching. It is a major tool used by teachers to impartknowledge to students as well as an important means to organize the class. The quantityand quality of TT can lead to success or failure in teaching. Therefore, it is of greatsignificance in the whole teaching process. TT for English Majors is special, for it is theteaching tool for teachers and an important way of providing the students with targetlanguage input at the same time. It is of demonstration function to some extent. Thus TTplays an important role in the whole teaching process, it has aroused a lot of scholars’attention. Scholars abroad and at home have studied. Based on the importance of TT inclassroom teaching, it is very necessary to study TT.Many scholars abroad and at home have conducted research on TT and obtainedfruitful results. Some of those scholars have discussed from empirical, pragmatic andcomparative views. Others have devoted themselves to study the relation between TT andlanguage acquisition. Still others have conducted research on TT from such aspects as the quantity and quality of TT, teachers’ questions, teachers’ feedback and modification. Thestudy in the present thesis is to make a tentative study on TT under the theoreticalframework of iconicity based on the previous studies of TT. It is supposed to draw someimplications and be helpful for teaching. It is of theoretical and practical significance.As an important theory in cognitive linguistics, iconicity has aroused much attentionfrom a variety of scholars both abroad and at home. It has been verified to be verypersuasive in various linguistic structures. Iconicity in language refers to theunderstandable relationship between linguistic expressions and what they represent. Ithas manifestation in different level of language in a wide range. Iconicity is concernedwith the importance of cognition in understanding language. The present thesis is toexplore the cognitive motivation of TT from a perspective of iconicity.The present thesis takes the teaching materials of four teachers in natural classroomteaching for sophomore and junior English majors in Yan’an University as research data.TT is mainly analyzed from the iconicity of quantity, sequence, distance and markednessrespectively. It can be found in the analyses that iconicity in TT can be realized thoughvarious linguistic strategies and there are many manifestations of iconicity to differentextents. In addition, those different kinds of iconicity are not in isolation. One linguisticphenomenon can be explained by different kinds of iconicity. With the help the iconicity,teachers can achieve their teaching goals better.Iconicity is considered as one basic property of language and has its manifestationsin different languages widely. Teachers can employ iconicity consciously to make theirstudents to take part in the class actively. Teachers can also provide their students withefficient language input and to improve the students’ language acquisition. At the sametime, teachers can explain some knowledge of iconicity in class to help the studentsunderstand what the teachers say better. Thus it may improve the teaching.