A Study Of Interpersonal Meaning Of Teacher Talk In College English Classes For English Majors

Influenced by the “student-centered” teaching model, teacher talk plays an important role inorganizing the teaching activities and learning the second language, even the quantity and quality of teachertalk decides the success of classroom teaching. Research and Analysis of teacher talk at home and abroad,have helped us understand the teacher talk deeply, enriched the teaching materials, realized the combinationof teacher talk and classroom teaching.This paper adopts qualitative and quantitative methods, explores theinterpersonal meaning of teacher talk in college English class for English majors in terms of mood,modality and person system, basing on Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics.By analyzing therealization and fulfillment of interpersonal meaning of teacher talk, we summed up the teacher’s role, putforward a proposal that could improve the efficiency of college English classroom teaching.The author listened several intensive reading classes for English majors and transcribed therecordings, then made a comparative analysis of the data and concluded the following results:1)The mood system: three sentence patterns are discussed: declarative, interrogative andimperative,we found that different patterns reflect different teaching strategies, convey differentinterpersonal meanings; a) When the teacher plays the role of classroom organizer or informationprovider,He/she use declarative to provide students with information, exchange information with thestudents, organize classroom activities, explain the language points, this phenomenon can illustrate theclass is teacher-centered or student-centered. b) The interrogatives can be divided into two types:theWH-interrogatives and the yes-no interrogatives.The yes-no interrogatives is used to: ask questions, rousestudents’ attention,check the understanding of knowledge,supply some information,stimulate students toparticipate in the classroom interaction actively;The WH-interrogatives is used to:encourage students tothink actively, help students understand the text, check the extent of certain information, improve teachingefficiency; c)By using imperatives, teachers show his/her authoritative status, distribute the tasks, givestudents some hints, encourage more language output, establish a harmonious relationship between teachersand students, at the same time,if teachers control the use of imperative appropriately, it can shorten thedistance between teachers and students.And more than half of them are the “let’s” structure.To a certainextent,this phenomenon reveals teachers also acts as the negotiator,assistant,and supervisor in the college English classroom.2)The modality system: the frequency of using the high,median and low value modal verbs andadverbs, can reveal the different relationships between teachers and students.However, Most teachers paymore attention to the median and low-value modal expressions in order to cultivate students’ learningbeliefs, weaken the demand or command and create a harmonious learning atmosphere.3)The Person system: a) teachers use the first person singular pronouns to show the authority whengiving the teaching instruction, express their viewpoints to students, stimulate students’ positive thinking; b)teachers use the first person plural pronouns to close the relationship, reduce the students’ anxiety,maximize student involvement and create a relaxed and equal teaching environment; c) teachers use thesecond person pronouns to attract students attention, encourage them to participate in classroom activities,offer clear language activities, stimulate students’ interests, give a proper and timely evaluation for students,which are the most frequently used by teachers.Based on the above data analysis, this study explains many teachers’ roles in college classes forEnglish Majors: learning guide,creator of classroom environment, information providers, classroommanager, instructor, helper and so on.According to the analysis of interpersonal meaning of teacher talk,it aims to arouse educators’attention to teaching mode and teachers’ role, understand the interpersonal meaning of teacher talk deeply,expand the horizon of the future foreign language teaching and strengthen the effect of teacher talk inclassroom interaction.