A Study Of English Teachers’ Speech Acts In The Classroom

Teacher talk should not be ignored in the English Classroom. Because it is notonly the main medium of teaching, but also a reflection of the teaching process. Fromthe perspective of pragmatics, the paper tries to discover what type and structureteachers’ speech acts should be in the class, how they work/function in the classroominteraction and to what degree they are connected with teaching efficiency. It attemptsto discuss the English teachers’ speech acts from both static and dynamic perspectivesso as to improve the teaching efficiency. Corpus are taken from ten lessons in theNational English Teaching Competition of Secondary Schools in the year of2003and2006. The whole paper consists of seven chapters: Chapter One and Seven are theintroduction and the conclusion. According to the content, the body of this paper iscomposed of two parts.The first part, including Chapter Two and Chapter Three,which is a static and context-independent analysis of teachers’ speech acts. Thesecond part, made up of the latter three chapters, is a dynamic and contextual study ofteachers’ speech acts in English classroom.By studying, the paper finds out:Firstly, context is the foundation and basis for students to understand teacher talkin English classroom. It helps English teachers to organize the teaching process,especially has to constraints the selection of discourse mode, rhetorical methods andlanguage style.Secondly, teachers’ role can be reflected when the interaction occurs betweenEnglish Teachers and students. Meanwhile, teachers’ role also affect teachers’ speechacts. There are mainly three functional roles in teaching English, such as the imparterof English knowledge and culture, the regulator of talk turns and the providers of thetopic.Thirdly, the authority of the teacher in the classroom is manifested in the controlof talk turns and the topic when teachers and students are interacting with each other.From the aspect of discourse content, English teachers’ authority is used for importingthe new knowledge, initiating the discourse, feeding back the answers andmaintaining the classroom discipline.