A Multimodal Analysis Of Teacher Talk In Elementary Chinese Comprehensive Course Based On ELAN

Teacher talk is not only an important tool for teachers to carry out classroom teaching,but also a significant way for students to acquire knowledge.Current researches on teacher talk reveal the features of teacher talk in phonology,vocabulary,syntax and discourse(Graies,1977;Heznl,1979;Long,1981;Long & Sato,1983),explore the functions of teacher talk(Chaudron,1977;Nunan,1991;Long,1988),and actively introduce teacher talk into the field of second language acquisition(Li Xiangming,1990;Lin Ruchang,1996;Zhao Xiaohong,1998;Wang Yinquan,1999).However,the existing studies of teacher talk mostly emphasize the study of teachers’ teaching language,but not on teachers’ nonverbal communicative behavior.What’s more,the use of research methods is relatively simple,which concentrates on qualitative research,and there is a lack of quantitative analysis.At the same time from the point of research scope,the current researches of teacher talk focus on the field of foreign language teaching,and the researches on teacher talk in TCSL need to be further enriched.From the perspectives of multimodal discourse analysis,using ELAN as the main research tool,this thesis makes a multimodal analysis of teacher talk in elementary Chinese comprehensive course,makes statistics on the modal use of teacher talk in the teaching process,and then discusses the meaning construction of the modes on the basis of the theory of visual grammar.Besides,a qualitative analysis about the combinatorial relations of modes in teacher talk is made,combining with the principles of modes collocation and selection,so as to put forward suggestions for the teachers on how to choose the modes reasonably in elementary Chinese comprehensive course.The main findings of this thesis are as follows:Firstly,in elementary Chinese comprehensive course,verbal mode is still the main mode of teacher talk,while nonverbal mode is an important auxiliary of verbal mode.Teachers can use visual mode,auditory mode and body language mode to coordinate,supplement and strengthen verbal mode.Secondly,when selecting the modes,teachers will take the characteristics of teaching links and the features of each mode into account,and utilize the cooperative mechanism among modes to enhance the diversity of classroom input.Thirdly,there exist both complementary and reinforcing relationships,and negating and repulsing relationships among modes.Teachers should actively construct complementary and reinforcing relationships to avoid the emergence of negating and repulsing relationships when selecting modes.Fourthly,teachers make use of the collocation and interaction among different modes in the process of classroom teaching to realize the representational meaning,interactive meaning and composition meaning.The realization of representational meaning depends on the interaction among verbal modes,gestures and eyes;the interactive meaning is realized in the dynamic adjustment of the contact forms and spatial distance between teachers and students;and the construction of composition meaning is based on the usage of information value,salience and frame.