On The Appropriateness In Educational Linguistics

Appropriateness is a kind of moral norm for people to behave in theirdaily life communication. It also represents peoples’ efforts in maintainingthe harmonious relationship with each other. Since1970s, appropriatenesshas been drawn much attention not only in the field of pragmatics, rhetoric,anthropology, sociology, but also in the field of English teaching. Manyscholars stand at a higher angle-“appropriateness”, looking at thecommunication between the English teacher and students in class. Taking apanoramic view of the literatures on appropriateness, the author finds thatexperts do research in the medium of classroom activities. In fact, thecooperative principles, politeness principle, as well as indirect speech actsall have the goal to judge the appropriateness in classroom communication.Appropriateness in Educational Linguistics (abbreviated as EL) is aproblem-oriented study, based on the classroom activities and drawing fromavailable theories and principles of pragmatics, speech act andcommunicative competence to analyze multidimensional appropriateness inclassroom, so as to prove that the appropriateness of interaction duringEnglish teaching is important, and also to illustrate the suggestions toachieve appropriate teaching so as to develop students’ communicativecompetence.Major studies of this thesis include: What are the connotations ofappropriateness in EL? What are the principles of the appropriateness inclassroom communication, and how do teachers achieve appropriate English teaching? The research approach of this thesis is, under thebackground of language teaching dilemma: accuracy or fluency, guided bythe interactional view, and with the theoretical frame construction, to studymultidimensional appropriateness from aspects of verbal, non-verbal,speech act, thinking way, and English teaching. By analyzing theingredients of verbal communication, speech act, and non-verbal in theclassroom, the author interprets the principles of appropriateness in thesethree parts. Then, logical thinking ability and thinking in the context of theNew Curriculum Standards are proposed as the appropriateness of implicitaspect.Innovation of this thesis lies in the following aspects:1）Multidimensional analysis on appropriateness from verbal to non-verbal,from explicit to implicit, and from general communication to specificlesson teaching；2) In order to cultivate students`communicative abilities,the author, on the basis of breaking with the traditional teaching method,puts forward some strategies in an attempt to explore the principles ofappropriateness in the four aspects of pronunciation, grammar, languagemeaning, and using.However, due to the limited time and energy, this study has itslimitations:1） The appropriateness of other dimensions haven’t beenanalyzed, such as no analysis of students from the aspects of gender, age,region, and ethnic; no deeply research on the appropriateness of situationcreation; etc.;2) Many problems in appropriateness study still need takinginto further consideration, such as what are the criteria for assessing theappropriateness of teachers’ speech or behavior；3) If more quantitativeresearch employed in this study, and the result will be more reliable.