An Empirical Study Of English Teacher's Identity Construction In The Context Of High School Classroom

The last ten years have witnessed the emergence of teacher 's identity as a hot issue in the study of teachers' development with regard to their profession. However, researches home and abroad are devoted to the social aspects of teacher's identity while studies on classroom discourse are far from adequacy. Therefore, on the basis of the complete narrative transcription scripts,the paper aims to explore the English teacher's identity construction via discourse in the context of high school classroom. Based on the theoretical framework of identity construction by Brewer and Gardner, the study finds that three types of identities are constructed by high school English teachers in classroom via discourse in the forms of different linguistic strategies. Specifically, in the context of high school classroom, agentive"I",control of topics, high modality, low degree of politeness and exchange structure are deployed by teachers to project authoritative professional identity; epistemic "I", personal topics and subjective modality are employed by teachers to construct authentic personal identity; inclusive "We", shared topics, low modality and high degree of politeness are manipulated by teachers to carve out equal relational identity. Moreover, these multiple identities interplay with each other and form a completed personality as a whole in the construction of teacher's identity in the context of classroom. The significance of this study is to construct teacher 's identity from the aspect of discourses, which forms a well-rounded understanding of teacher's identity. Besides, to comprehend the current status of teacher 's identity in the basic phase can further the understanding of class teaching, escalate teachers'teaching skill and improve students learning, which offers some juicy reference for teacher 's sound career development.