A Research On Chinese College English Teachers’ In-class Speeches In The Light Of Cooperative Principle

Research subjects are20college English teachers who are different inprofessional title, educational background, teaching in different types of universitiesand teaching students in different semesters.20videotapes of these20teachers’college English classes are downloaded from their respective university websites,which are made public as materials for the purpose of fine course construction.These videotapes are further transcribed into scripts and later converted into datawith the help of computer. Based on the data, results are as follows:Under Quantity Maxim:1.The proportion of teacher speech ranges from31.3%to93.8%, with anaverage of73%, revealing that teachers in the20videos take up most of theclassroom time talking in class, which correspondingly indicates the students’chances for output are taken for granted.2.The average word amount in each sentence ranges from5.5to11.8with theaverage of8.2words in each sentence. Half of them are lower than the average whilethe rest10are higher. It is advisable that the teacher should try to use different typesof sentences and produce longer sentences. Casual teachers’ speeches with toomany short and simple sentences should be carefully avoided.3.As for lead-ins, teachers take various forms of lead-ins after short greetings orwith no greeting.7teachers resort to questioning ways to lead in;5teachers employactivities, including word association activity, competition activity and discussionactivity;8teachers make use of auto-visual aids such as songs, voice records, picturesand videos;1teacher assigns tasks.4.As for close-offs,2teachers end their classes without saying goodbye or anyclose-offs;4teachers assign homework and deliver thanks or say goodbye to theirstudents, while T10ends class only with a quick reminder of doing homework；other10teachers allow students to take a break; T17gives a special conclusion to the coreof the class; T5and T11end their classes with simple thanks.5.The percentages of question comments in the20chosen scripts are provided, with the lowest0and the highest38.9%. The proportion of display questions toreferential questions on the average is8.5:1. For display questions, the answers aredefinite and teachers simply put a “thank you” or “good” comment in most cases. Forreferential questions, after students answer the questions, teachers will give somecomments on their opinions with acknowledgements.Under Quality Maxim:6.Teacher speech is natural or “authentic”. This means the students should beexposed to the environment of “authentic language” from the very beginning,providing them with authentic discourse, authentic situation and authentic content.7.The average speech rate is112words per minute (the abbreviation form“wpm” is used in the following). Compared with the previous researches into speechrate, this number is rather low. This result may be due to the deliberate modificationin their speech rate and simplification in the choosing of words. Another reason maylie in the teacher quality or their language proficiency.Under Relation Maxim:8.The percentages of off-topic speeches in the total teacher speeches are listedin the Table4.9, ranging from0to7.2%. Overly using off-topic speeches in class is notadvisable, but we can make proper use of off-topic speeches to activate theclassroom atmosphere or break the ice at the beginning of the class.9.Repetitions are mainly used as repetitions of questions, repetitions ofexplanations, and repetitions of students’ errors or opinions. Repetitions of questionsrange from0.8%to11.4%, the average of which is4.9%. Repetitions of explanationsrange from6.1%to34.7%, the average of which is15%. Repetitions of students’errors or opinions range from0to12.6%, the average of which is4.3%.Under Manner Maxim:10.As for greetings,7teachers begin their classes without the basic greeting.Other12teachers greet students with “good morning or afternoon”. T3’s greeting isdifferent and really caring for the students, which is far better than a plain “goodmorning” or “good afternoon”. She begins with “how are you today?” and tells thestudents to take care of themselves in a mother-like tone, which will help win a great number of students’ hearts.11.As for saying goodbye,2teachers end their classes without saying goodbye;8teachers end their classes by delivering thanks to their students; other10teachersallow students to take a break, which can be accounted for by the class arrangement.The10teachers will continue to have classes after the break.12.The class of discourse markers is closed. In the data subjects, five discoursemarkers including “ok”,“and”,“so”,“now” and “but” with highest frequencies areemployed in all the20teachers’ speech. Besides, other10frequent discoursemarkers are listed in the table, that is,“right”,“yeah”,“or”,“because”,“then”,“yes”,“good”,“first”,“you know” and “of course”. From the data, it can be proved thatdifferent teachers have different preferences for specific discourse markers.