A Study Of Discourse Power In College English Class-from The Perspective Of Conversation Analysis

Discourses of teacher and students are two important parts of classroomteaching, especially in language classroom teaching. Scholars at home and abroadhave done a number of researches on teachers’ discourse and most of them arequantitative. This research attempts to study the discourse of teachers and students incollege English class from the perspective of Conversation Analysis and todemonstrate the invisible power relation reflected by discourse through the analysisof the results. Using qualitative researches with a small number of quantitativeresearches, this study recorded, transcribed and analyzed five college English classesfrom a vocational college in Wuhan, Hubei Province, which is based on Sacks’conversation analysis theory and Foucault’s discourse theory. The analysis of thisthesis aims to find the answers of the following four questions:1. How do collegeEnglish teachers affect or control the class by their discourse?2. How do studentsgive up or claim their discourse right under this circumstance?3. What are thecauses of this discourse power relation?4. How to reconstruct the current discoursepower relation?Next, the results of the study indicate that teachers in college English classcontrol and affect students and the whole class by turn initiation and the strategy ofturn holding and turn taking as well as metacomment and naked discourse powergiven by the college. In the meantime, teachers’ turn yielding also reflects theirdominant role in the class. On the other hand, under the influence of teachers’discourse power, students are more likely to choose relative simple turn constructionunits or totally give up the chance through turn silence.Finally, detailed discussions are made to analyze the discourse power in collegeEnglish class and find that the discourse power in college English class isasymmetric. And besides the institutional characteristics of college English class andthe imbalance of knowledge resources between teachers and students, the causes of the asymmetric discourse power lie in the participants of the class—the teacher andhis/her students. Their differences in choosing strategies of turn-yielding,turn-holding and turn-taking result in the asymmetry. And the reconstruction of thisasymmetric discourse power needs the common efforts from teachers and students.As a teacher, he/she should shift the discourse structure, change his/her way ofraising questions and giving feedbacks. Students, as important participants of theclass, must choose relative complex turn construction units when necessary andlessen the number of turn silence.In brief, the analysis of discourse power in college English class not only helpteachers and students recognize the status quo of discourse in current college Englishclasses, but also provide an effective way for teachers and students to reconstruct thediscourse power in class, in which students can get more opportunities to speak inclass and therefore their ability to speak and use English can be enhanced. Inaddition to the above mentioned aspects, it can lay a good foundation for the futureresearch in this field.