Intersubjectivity Of Classroom Discourse In Senior High School English Reading Class: An Empirical Study Based On Communicative Action Theory

Classroom discourse usually refers to the verbal and nonverbal discourse produced by teacher and students in formal classroom context.It is generally agreed that there are mainly three patterns of classroom discourse.The first is characterized by student silence: the teacher talks for most of the time and asks questions only occasionally.The second pattern is controlled conversation: the teacher may ask students questions,but these questions are predetermined and usually have definite answers.The last is active interaction: this is the pattern where the teacher acts as a facilitator who makes the interaction mainly take place among the students.Researchers also basically agree that the ideal classroom interaction should be active and the discourse produced therein should highly reflect the intersubjective feature among the subjects(i.e.teacher and students)in the field of classroom.Nevertheless,how to scientifically understand and evaluate such a discourse pattern which embodies high intersubjectivity is still an issue worthy of academic discussion at present.Therefore,it is of particular significance to effectively drawn on the theoretical resources from other disciplines and align it with the teaching practice so as to construct a feasible framework for evaluating and guiding the discursive practice in the classrooms.In view of this,this study takes Habermas’ s theory of communicative action as the theoretical basis,trying to construct a practicable framework for analyzing the intersubjective classroom discourse.The interactive discourse of teacher and the students in 5 English reading classes in a senior high school in Nanjing City of Jiangsu Province was videotaped as the data source in order to examine the intersubjective characteristics of English reading classroom discourse and its feasible construction mode.In the study,the following three questions are under focus: 1)What are the intersubjective characteristics of the discourse produced in the English reading class? 2)Why can highly intersubjective classroom discourse contribute to a high-quality teacher-student interaction? 3)How can we construct a type of classroom discourse with high intersubjectivity?By analyzing the data collected,major findings are summarized as follows.Firstly,classroom discourse with high intersubjectivity is reciprocal,equal and communicative.Secondly,this type of classroom discourse is very productive in that for one thing,it stimulates students’ initiative and autonomy in classrooms and for another,it cultivates their interests in acquiring the knowledge beyond the textbook.Thirdly,in order to facilitate the construction of an intersubjective classroom discourse,the following two ways are advisable.First,it is necessary to promote the integration of subjects in a classroom field.The teacher is encouraged not only to provide the students with more discourse space by reducing their reliance on recall and display questions,but also to offer positive feedback to the students.In this way,the students can better integrate themselves with the classroom field and acquire higher leaning efficiency,which in turn helps teachers improve their performance as a key subject or agent in the classroom field.Second,intersubjective classroom discourse means that communication takes place not only between teacher and students but also among the students themselves,which should be achieved through various appropriate teaching activities.The above findings are expected to provide some reference for the shift in classroom discourse from a subject-oriented pattern to an intersubjectivity-featured pattern.