A Cognitive Approach To English Indirect Speech And Its Teaching In Junior Middle Schools

Indirect speech, which is an important content of English learning, is a key and difficult point in junior middle school English teaching. Previous studies on the indirect speech in English focus on the description of the formal changes of persons, tenses, times, places, questions and imperatives involved in the course of transformation from direct speech into indirect speech, and previous studies on the teaching of the indirect speech in English focus on the teaching of rules concerning the formal changes of persons, tenses, times, places, questions and imperatives involved in the course of transformation from direct speech into indirect speech. Little research has been done on the cognitive laws behind the transformation from direct speech into indirect speech, and nor has enough research been done on how to develop students’cognitive abilities to better grasp the rules related to the transformation from direct speech into indirect speech. This thesis, by applying basic cognitive theories into the investigation and teaching of the indirect speech in English, attempts to discover the cognitive nature and laws of the indirect speech and to teach the indirect speech in accordance with its cognitive laws for the purpose of helping students to better grasp the use of indirect speech and improving the result of indirect speech teaching. The thesis has first conducted a cognitive study of the indirect speech in English. The study reveals the following facts:(1) the cognitive nature of the transformation from direct speech into indirect speech is the transferring of perspective of cognition;(2) the perspective of cognition of indirect speech is the perspective of the reporter, which may be identical with or different from the perspective of cognition of the source speech; and (3) when the perspective of cognition of the indirect speech is identical with that of the source speech, the indirect speech remains the same as the source speech both in content and in form, and no change is needed, but if the perspective of cognition of the indirect speech is different from that of the source speech, the indirect speech is different from the source speech both in content and in form, and changes should be made accordingly. The thesis has provided accounts of the formal changes of persons, tenses, times, places, questions and imperatives involved in the course of transformation from direct speech into indirect speech by applying the concept of transferring of perspective of cognition.On the basis of the cognitive study of the indirect speech, the thesis has made research into the cognitive teaching of the indirect speech in English in junior middle schools. The principles and methods of cognitive language teaching and the practical ways of teaching the indirect speech are put forward. On the basis of the research, an experiment has been conducted on the teaching of the indirect speech in a junior middle school. The result of the experiment shows that the cognitive teaching of the indirect speech can help the students to better understand and better grasp the indirect speech and that the cognitive teaching can produce better result than the traditional teaching.The present research is an attemptive study of the cognitive teaching of grammar in junior middle schools. It is hoped that this study will provide a new way of grammar teaching in junior middle schools and play a part in promoting the reform in grammar teaching in junior middle school English teaching.