（英语语言文学专业论文）《综合英语》课堂教师话语分析.pdf

ma thesis of ningbo university i 作者:作者: 谢蓉蓉 申请级别:硕士 题目: 谢蓉蓉 申请级别:硕士 题目: 综合英语课堂教师话语分析 导师:导师: 学校:宁波大学 学校:宁波大学 综合英语课堂教师话语分析 摘 要 教师话语（teacher talk）是课堂话语的重要组成部分，对课堂教学的组织及 学生的语言习得都至为关键。教师话语不仅起着目的语使用的示范作用，而且 是学生语言输入的又一重要途径。本文主要采用对课堂教学过程进行观察、录 音并转写成文字材料的方式；以宁波三所主要的本科院校英语专业基础课程 综合英语课堂十位教师的话语为研究对象；主要研究教师话语量、教师提 问的类型及频率、交互调整的方式及频率和教师课堂交流的话回结构这四方 面，旨在探讨教师话语是否促进学生的二语习得。全文可分为五章： 第一章简要介绍了教师话语的研究背景，指出了本研究的目的、意义；第二 章详细阐述了与教师话语相关的三个理论基础以及本文所讨论的教师话语四个 方面的研究状况；第三、四章是本文的主体部分。第三章主要介绍了研究设 计，并对所收集的录音转写材料进行统计分析，得出研究问题的统计结果。第 四章对第三章的结果具体探讨分析，并提出了由讨论所得出的三点启示。第五 章对全文进行总结，并对研究中的局限性进行阐述，提出了进一步研究的建 议。研究调查的结果如下： 1、教师的话语量（37.87%）远远少于学生的话语量（62.13%）。 2、教师在课堂上使用的参考性问题（53.6%）多于展示性问题（46.4%）。 3、教师使用的三种调整方式中，确认核实（63.8%）使用频率最高；其次 是澄清请求（23.4%）；最不常使用的方式为理解核实（12.8%）。 ma thesis of ningbo university ii 4、关于话回结构，研究者发现在研究课程中除了 irf 结构，教学中还普遍 存在更复杂的话回，在交互过程中有很多的意义协商。因此得出了新的话回结 构：i-r-(n-r)n-(f)n。这也是本研究的创新点。 总之，在所研究的综合英语课堂中，教师能运用参考性问题及确认核 实和澄清请求两种调整方式来加强交流中的意义协商，尽量增加学生的二语输 出，促进学生的二语习得。其话回结构则比传统课堂中的话回结构更为复杂。 通过在话回结构加入意义协商的话步可以使新话回应用性更为广泛，且更体现 了该课程的特点，并能引导教师在授课过程中重视意义协商。 关键词：关键词：教师话语， 课堂话语结构， 参考性问题， 交互调整 ma thesis of ningbo university iii an analysis of teacher talk in comprehensive english classes abstract teacher talk is one of the essential parts of classroom discourse, which is of crucial importance for the organization of the classroom and the students second language acquisition. teacher talk not only is a tool to impart knowledge, but also serves as a major source of comprehensible target language input. in this research, the teaching processes are observed and audio-recorded and the recorded materials are transcribed into written record to be used for analysis. the subjects involved are ten teachers giving lectures of comprehensive english to english majors in three major universities in ningbo. to discuss whether teacher talk facilitating students language acquisition, four aspects of teacher talk are studied here: the amount of teacher talk time; the types and frequency of teachers questions; the types and frequency of interactional modifications and the exchange structure in classroom interactions. the thesis consists of five chapters: chapter one briefly introduces the research background, the aims and the significance of the study; chapter two presents three theoretical foundations and introduces the four aspects of teacher talk in this research; chapter three and four are the main bodies of this thesis. chapter three introduces the research design. and then in this chapter the collected transcriptions are analyzed and the statistical results are found. chapter four gives a detailed discussion and explanation of the findings shown in chapter three. whats more, some implications are given based on the above findings. chapter five makes a conclusion and states some limitations in this research. then it puts forward some suggestions for future research. the research results show that: 1. there is a preference of student talk (62.13%) over teacher talk (37.87%). 2. referential questions (53.6%) have been used more frequently than display questions (46.4%). 3. confirmation checks (63.8%) have been used most significantly, clarification requests (23.4%) list the second, and the least frequently used ones are the comprehension checks(12.8%). 4. as to the classroom discourse structures studied here, the researcher finds a new exchange structure, that is i-r-(n-r)n-(f)n, which takes negotiation of meaning into considerations. this structure is an innovative idea in this study. in a word, the research results show that in the comprehensive english classes under investigation, teachers will use referential questions, confirmation checks and clarification requests ma thesis of ningbo university iv to promote negotiation of meaning in the interaction, so as to maximize students second language output and facilitate students second language acquisition. the exchange structures are more complicated than the exchanges in the traditional english classrooms. the adding of the move “n” (negotiation) into the new exchange can make the new exchange structure more applicable and the observed classes more to its characteristics. whats more, it can guide the teachers take negotiation into account during the process of lectures. key words: teacher talk, discourse structures， referential questions, interactional modifications 独独 创创 性性 声声 明明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工 作及取得研究成果。尽我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方 外，论文中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写的研究成果，也不包含为获得 宁波大学或其他教育机构的学位或证书所使用过的材料。与我一同工作 的同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中做了明确的说明并表示了 谢意。 签名：_ 日期：_ 关于论文使用授权的声明关于论文使用授权的声明 本人完全了解宁波大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校 有权保留送交论文的复印件，允许论文被查阅和借阅；学校可以公布论 文的全部或部分内容，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 （保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定）（保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定） 签名：_ 导师签名：_ 日期：_ ma thesis of ningbo university - 1 - 1 introduction 1.1 research background as r.ellis(1985) has said that, the researchers turn their interest to teacher talk, interaction analysis and discourse analysis in the classroom teaching process, because the decisive influence of the teaching methodology cannot be confirmed in teaching. “discourse analysis” refers to a variety of procedures for examining chunks of language, whether spoken or written. in the case of classroom research, discourse analysis usually involves the analysis of spoken language as it is used in classrooms among teachers and learners. van lier(1988:122) describes it as “an analysis of the processes of interaction by means of a close examination of audiovisual records of interaction”. teacher talk，the speech teachers use in classroom, is an aspect which has received much attention recently, for it is believed to be a key variable in second language development. nunan (1991:189) says teacher talk not only is a tool to impart knowledge, but also serves as a crucial source of input. hakansson(1986) points out that the amount and quality of teacher talk has a great effect on and is even a decisive factor of the success or failure of classroom teaching. anton(1999) observes that another role of teacher talk is deserving more and more notice: to use teacher talk to organize and initiate learners to take part in various communicative activities. he asserts that by offering more opportunities for learners to exchange information and express themselves, that is to say, by means of interaction and negotiation of meaning, learners language acquisition will be facilitated significantly. moreover, according to allwright ying huilan(1998) put forward the theory “students-centered teaching model”. in 2002, zhou xing and zhou yun publish a thesis in foreign language teaching and research named a study of teacher talk in english classes, which systematically analyzes the distinguishing feature of teacher talk in esl classroom. huang guowen(1991) and hu zhuanglin(2001) have made an introduction of the classroom discourse structure. li yuee and fan hongya(2002) conclude four types of exchange structures(refer to 2.2.1) in the oral english classes. these inventories of teacher talk have been proposed and have provided insight into characteristics of teacher talk. teachers have gained access to the understanding of learning and teaching. however, many findings concerning teacher talk in esl classroom are still inconclusive and a lot remain to be done. in order to better understand the process of english classroom discourse in the chinese context, this study aims to explore the characteristics of teacher talk and its effects on negotiation of meaning and in turn, learners fl acquisition in efl classrooms in china. 1.2 aims of the present study this study is done with a purpose to investigate the features of teacher talk in comprehensive english classroom in ningbo, and the role teacher talk plays in chinese learners efl learning ma thesis of ningbo university - 3 - progress. it aims to investigate the classroom interaction initiated by proper teacher questions, the exchange structures and the interactional modifications so as to discover how teacher talk contribute to acquisition and learning in efl classroom. the present research designs to provide answers to the questions below: l) what are the main features and discourse functions of “teacher talk”in efl classroom discourse and the amount of teacher talk time and student talk time? 2) how frequent are display questions and referential questions in efl classroom discourse? does the difference of frequency have considerable effect on comprehensible input and hence language acquisition for learners? 3) what are the frequency distributions of the three types of interactional modifications, that is, comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests in the classes under investigation? 4) what are the exchange discourse structures in the comprehensive english classes? and are there much negotiation of meaning which is helpful to second language acquisition? 1.3 significance of the present study in the year 2000, syllabus for english majors was newly designed. the new syllabus emphasizes that english classroom should be student-centered, but not dominated by teachers. teacher-centered teaching mode should be changed. teachers should thoroughly exert students motility and creativity, cultivate students autonomy, independency and cooperative spirit. as a tool to help the students second language acquisition, teacher talk, which includes teacher questioning, interactional modification, negotiation of meaning etc., allows learners to obtain comprehensible input and produce comprehensible output. so researches about what role teacher talk plays and how it works in classroom discourse would be of great importance in finding cues to students language acquisition process. since lots of what efl teaching processes involve is teacher talk, comprehending how teacher talk works in efl classroom discourse is critical for understanding teaching process, the teachers themselves, and might even give insights into the learning process. it is expected to provide an empirical investigation for features of classroom teacher behaviors and aims to contribute to a better understanding of teaching process in comprehensive english classroom for english majors. the present research is expected to reveal what types of teacher-student interaction are most favorable for promoting learners english development. as many classroom-oriented researchers have pointed out, it is only through analyzing descriptions that show how teachers and their students make interactions and it is only through a better understanding of classroom teacher behaviors that teachers can make their teaching more profitable for learners, and hence they can learn a great deal about how to teach. ma thesis of ningbo university - 4 - therefore, discovering what types of teacher behaviors are of benefit to more negotiation of meaning and thus beneficial to learners comprehensible input and output and finally language acquisition will give teachers important insights into the nature of teaching process. last but not least, it is significant for efl teachers to find the ways to improve their teaching techniques in order to cope with the unfavorable factors which hinder learners english acquisition. by virtue of revealing how teachers and students deal with accomplishing efl classroom lessons in the chinese context, the present study would provide a perspective different from the previous studies and may be of use for researchers who are interested in investigating how efl classroom teacher behaviors differ across cultural contexts. ma thesis of ningbo university - 5 - 2 theoretical foundations and literature review 2.1 theoretical foundations 2.1.1 krashens comprehensible input hypothesis one of the most influential theories of sla in the 1970s and early 1980s is krashens monitor theory (mt). and the most developed aspect of his theory is the input hypothesis (krashen 1985). the input hypothesis states: “humans acquire language in only one way-by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input” (krashen 1985:2). the hypothesis consists of a principal statement and two corollaries, as shown in the following: principal statement: learners progress along the natural order by understanding input that contains structures that are a little bit beyond their current competence (i.e. i+1) corollary 1: speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges as a result of building competence via comprehensible input. corollary 2: if input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is automatically provided and the teacher does not need to teach the next structure. the input hypothesis (krashen 1985) according to krashens input hypothesis, through understanding the comprehensible input with structures a little bit beyond their current level (i+1), learners develop second language competence along the natural order. the language which learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence but still be challenged to make progress. in krashens view, the input hypothesis has implications for the classroom in the following two ways. a) speaking is a result of acquisition and not its cause. speech cannot be taught directly but emerges on its own as a result of building competence via comprehensible input. b) if input is understood, and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is automatically provided. the language teacher need not attempt deliberately to teach the next text structure along the natural order-it will be provided in just the right quantities and automatically reviewed if the student receives a sufficient amount of comprehensible input. (krashen 1985: 2) this leaves little for a teacher to do other than ensure that the students receive comprehensible input. krashen describes two ways in which comprehension of input is achieved: the utilization of context by the learner and the provision of simplified input by the teacher. krashen suggests the learner make use of context to infer the meaning of an utterance when existing linguistic resources are insufficient for immediate decoding. he also stresses that two-way interaction is a particularly ma thesis of ningbo university - 6 - good way of providing comprehensible input because it enables the learner to obtain additional contextual information and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to be negotiated because of communication problems. 2.1.2 swains comprehensible output hypothesis basing on her years of research with french immersion programs in canada, swain puts forward the comprehensible output hypothesis, which claims that l2 development results from learners producing the target language more frequently, more accurately in a wider variety of circumstances. swain challenges the by then dominant notion of the importance of comprehensible input by suggesting that what is needed is comprehensible output rather than comprehensible input. she maintains that besides comprehension, production is also very important for sla. she argues that comprehensible input is insufficient for learners to attain native-like grammatical competence, but comprehensible output plays a crucial role in it. in other words, learners need the opportunity for meaningful use of her linguistic resources to achieve this. swain (1985) has concluded three functions of output. the first is that output reminds learners of a gap between what they want to say and what they can say. during the process of producing, learners are forced to pay attention to their linguistic problems. this may trigger cognitive processes which generate linguistic knowledge that is new for learners, or which consolidate their existing knowledge. the second contribution that output can make to sla is that production is a way to test hypothesis. according to the researches conducted in these two decades, output can be an indication that a learner has formulated a hypothesis about how language works. this output can sometimes elicit feedback which leads learners to modify their output. the third function of output is that it enables learners to internalize and control linguistic knowledge. output forces learner to analyze the linguistic forms which can carry the intended meaning. swain expounds the idea that one learns to speak by speaking, and that “one-to-one conversational exchanges provide an excellent opportunity for this to occur. even better, though, are those interactions where there has been a communicative breakdown-where the learner has received some negative input-and the learner is pushed to use alternate means to get across his or her massage” (swain 1985: 248). negative input is feedback provided to the learner to let him know that there is something wrong with his output (schachter 1984). it includes explicit corrections, confirmation checks and clarification requests. yet, for learners to achieve nativelike competence, swain (1985: 248) suggests that: “the meaning of negotiating meaning needs to be extended beyond the usual sense of simply getting the message across. negotiating meaning needs to incorporate the notion of ma thesis of ningbo university - 7 - being pushed towards the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely, coherently, and appropriately”. 2.1.3 longs negotiated interaction hypothesis interaction has played an important role in language acquisition because it can help make comprehensible input and draw comprehensible output from learners. interactions help generate comprehensible input. both krashen and long acknowledge the role of language input. long differs with krashen on how to make input comprehensible. in krashens point of view, premodification makes input comprehensible. long admits the role of premodification on comprehension on the one hand,