Discursive Construction Of Teachers’ Identity In Middle School English Classroom

Middle school English classroom teaching has always been the focus for researchershome and abroad. In this field, many aspects such as teachers’ discourse, students’ acquisition,and the interaction between teachers and students have been discussed a lot so far. However,most researchers home and abroad devote to the linguistic features of teachers’ discourse,ignoring the social aspects. Thus identity studies in educational settings are not as desirable asthey should be.Identity is a fascinating concept with rich meanings. To put it simple, Gee (2001:99)regards identity as suggesting a “kind of person” in a particular context. One may havemultiple forms of one “core identity”. Moreover, Constructivists hold that identity is notstable, but dynamic, multi-faceted, and discursively constructed in specific context. Thus, thisstudy is to discuss the discursive construction of teachers’ identity in middle school Englishclassrooms by displaying real situation of teachers’ talk in classroom. Specifically, it aims toanswer the following questions: how the two main aspects of teachers’ identity as authorityand as friend are discursively constructed in discourses and how the two aspects interplaywith each other. Based on Hyland’s analytical framework, teachers’ discourse from thesub-corpus CLASS, including JSCT (Junior School Classroom Teaching) and SSCT (SeniorSchool Classroom Teaching) is analyzed in detail to illustrate the discursive construction ofteachers’ identity as authority and as friend in middle school English classroom.The results of this study reveal that teachers’ identity is discursively constructed andnegotiated in specific classroom teaching context. This study is persuasive enough toillustrate how teachers’ two main sub-identities are constructed and negotiate with each otherthrough linguistic devices. More specifically, teachers’ identity as authority is realizedthrough the use of interactional control, attitude markers, directives, and agentive I on the onehand, and teachers’ identity as friend is realized through such categories as hedges, shared knowledge, polite directives, and inclusive we on the other hand. The two sub-identities arenot clear-cut but negotiate with each other.This study is supposed to have both theoretical and practical significance. It contributesto filling in the theoretical gap in this specific field in China on the one hand, and offers someguidance to English teachers in China concerning their professional identity on the otherhand.The present paper consists of five chapters. Chapter1is a general introduction to thewhole thesis. Chapter2provides a brief history of the related studies which are objectivelycommented and analyzed, then applied to the present study accordingly. Chapter3serves asthe theoretical foundation. The most suitable theory for the present study is Hyland (2005)’sframework of academic/writer-reader interaction in academia and his stance and engagementfeatures lay a solid foundation for the present study. In Chapter4, a detailed analysis ofdiscursive construction of teachers’ identity and the interplay between the two sub-identitiesin middle school English classroom teaching are clearly presented by examining the corpus.Chapter5draws a conclusion to the study and makes clear the major findings, implications,limitations, and prospect for future study.