Attitudinal Resources In College English Teacher Talk

At present,there are lots of studies about teacher talk.Teacher talk is of special value in the aspects of speed,pause,stress,vocabulary,syntax and discourse as language input.The scholars mainly focus on the characteristics and functions of teacher talk,including the rate of speech,teachers' voice,asking questions and students' feedback,etc.But little attention is paid to the interpersonal functions of teacher talk and attitudinal elements in the discourse,which will influence the interaction between teachers and students,teaching process and teaching effect.In view of this,the thesis puts forward two research questions: 1.What kinds of attitudinal resources are embodied in college English teacher talk? What are their distribution features? 2.How do attitudinal resources,namely Affect,Judgement and Appreciation negotiate meaning effectively and construct a harmonious relationship between teachers and students in EFL classes?From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL),language is a selective semantic system.Appraisal theory put forward by J.R.Martin is a new semantic framework,which is developed from SFL.According to Martin(2005),Appraisal theory is composed of three subcategories: Attitude,Engagement and Graduation.The system of Attitude is the core of Appraisal theory and each system can be further divided into different dimensions.During the class observation,the author randomly records ten college English classes of five teachers of Northwest A&F University.After transcribing the videos and tidying up the data,the author uses PowerGREP3.4.1 to inquire information and analyze the data.Based on the system of Attitude,this research counts the frequencies and proportions of attitudinal resources in the subcategories of Attitude and their dimensions and analyzes the attitudinal resources embodied in college English teacher talk in order to find out how attitudinal resources are used by teachers in college EFL classrooms to shorten the distance between teachers and students,active students' motivations,and improve teaching effect.Some findings of the thesis are summarized here: 1.By observing and analyzing the frequencies in attitudinal resources,attitudinal resources are abundant and extensively distributed in college EFL teacher talk.The frequencies of Affect,Judgment and Appreciation resources are different,with the frequency of Judgment the lowest,then that of Affect and that of Appreciation the highest.Among the dimensions of Appreciation,Reaction accounts for the largest proportion,which shows teachers pay special attention to the impact and quality of teaching process,teaching contents and teaching phenomena.2.The proper use of Affect resources in college EFL teacher talk with body language can shorten the psychological distance between teachers and students;Judgement resources can be used to appraise the capacity,character and qualities of students to give explicit feedback and assure the interaction between teachers and students;Appreciation resources are related to the expectation of students by evaluating students' performance,appearance or morality of students or teachers to create a humor and easy classroom atmosphere.Teachers prefer to use positive attitudinal resources to praise students in an explicit way.In this way students will be inspired and motivated to partake in class activities,and the embarrassment of errors or mistakes in English teacher classes can be avoided in an easy and harmonious classroom atmosphere.The thesis demonstrates the feasibility of the application of Appraisal theory into college EFL teacher talk.It is expected that this research will be pedagogically useful and effective as a guiding reference for teacher talk.