Attitudinal Resources In Junior High School EFL Classroom Teacher Talk

In the past few decades, discourse analysis has aroused a great deal of researchers’ attention both at home and abroad. As a major domain of discourse analysis, classroom discourse has become the focus of many linguists and educationists since the 1970s. Nunan (1991) states that "In the classroom, teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the class but also for the processes of L2 acquisition" (p.189). Since quite a lot of EFL teaching processes are realized by teacher talk, comprehending how teacher talk works in EFL classroom is crucial for understanding the teaching and learning process as well as teachers themselves. Although tremendous researches have so far been conducted on teacher talk, few focus attitudinal resources and their influence upon the interpersonal relationship and interactions between the teacher and students as well as their teaching effect. Therefore, this thesis attempts to fill in the loophole by exploring the attitudinal resources in junior high school EFL classroom teacher talk from the perspective of Appraisal Theory.Appraisal Theory addresses the interpersonal metafunction of language in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. According to Martin (2000). Appraisal Theory is concerned about the resources via which the writer or speaker can express their attitudes, get involved in the propositions and grade the assessment of things. Appraisal System is composed of three sub-systems:Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Each system can be further divided into some subsystems. In this study, the attitudinal resources are chosen as the subject matter under discussion.The Attitude system is one of the major systems of Appraisal System. It refers to the meanings through which writers and speakers attach assessment to participants or processes. This system is further divided into three subsystems:Affect, Judgment and Appreciation, which are conventionally referred to as emotion, ethics and aesthetics.Based on Appraisal Theory, the present study adopts a quantitative and qualitative approach to analyzing junior high school EFL classroom teacher talk. Four experienced teachers’lessons and four novice teachers’lessons are collected as the corpus. A comparison between the attitudinal resources in experienced teachers’talk and novice teachers’talk is made, covering their distribution patterns and influences on the interpersonal relationship. The statistical analysis leads to the following findings:As for the similarities, it is found that:(i) Attitudinal resources are densely distributed both in junior high school EFL classroom experienced teachers" talk and novice teachers’ talk. The three subsystems of attitudinal resources (i.e. Affect. Judgment and Appreciation) are widely used in both experienced teachers" talk and novice teachers’ talk, (ii) Positive attitudinal resources take up a higher proportion than that of negative attitudinal resources in both. (iii) Concerning the subsystems of Judgment and Appreciation, Capacity resources take up the highest frequency of Judgment resources both in experienced teachers’talk and novice teachers’talk, and Reaction resources take up the highest frequency of Appreciation resources in both.With regard to the differences, the results indicate that:(i) The total number of attitudinal resources in junior high school EFL classroom experienced teachers’talk outweighs that in novice teachers’ talk. (ii) The distribution patterns of the three subsvstems of attitudinal resources in EFL teacher talk are different between experienced and novice teachers.(iii) In terms of Affect resource, the distribution patterns and the strategies to use this resource are different between experienced and novice teachers. The Affect resource is very rich and its four subsystems can be found in experienced teachers’ talk, whereas it is unevenly distributed in novice teachers’talk, (iv In terms of the Judgment resource, the distribution patterns and strategies to use this resource are different between experienced and novice teachers. In experienced teachers’ talk, all the five subsystems of Judgment are used while only Capacity resource is used in novice teachers’ talk. (v) In terms of the Appreciation resource, the distribution patterns and strategies to use this resource are different between experienced and novice teachers. In experienced teachers’ talk, all the three subsystems resources of Appreciation are used while in novice teachers’ talk, only Reaction resource can be identified. In a word, experienced teachers use attitudinal resources more flexibly and tactfully than novice teachers. Classroom observation indicates that the students in experienced teachers’ class are more active in classroom activities, more willing to cooperate with the teacher and make contributions to the whole class, and thus experienced teachers’ classrooms are sometimes full of laughter and the atmosphere is more relaxing and harmonious.The significance of this study is threefold. Firstly, it demonstrates the feasibility of applying Appraisal Theory in teacher talk analysis. Secondly, the research scope of teacher talk is extended. Thirdly, it is expected to shed some light for junior high school EFL classroom teachers so that they can make full and tactful use of attitudinal resources in their talk to improve the interpersonal relationship and establish a more relaxing and harmonious classroom atmosphere.