An Analysis of Senior High School English Teacher Talk Based on Speech Act Theory

武思興

Abstract： Teacher talk means the language spoken by teacher to organize activities in class. And it is also a useful tool of teaching. In the study， the participants involved are 3 teachers and 160 students from 3 classes which the three teachers teach respectively， and they are all from Datong No.2 Middle School. Classroom observation and recording method is adopted. Based on Speech Act Theory， the paper analyzes teacher talk from five aspects： teachers greeting， instruction， presentation， question and feedback. By analyzing the proportion of each type of teacher talk， the characteristics and its effect on students， this paper points out some limitations of the teacher talk found in the study. And so the paper further throws out some suggestions in an attempt to standardize the teacher talk and improve classroom teaching.

Key Words： Speech Act Theory; teacher talk; senior English class

一、Introduction

Nowadays students are more inclined to learn a foreign language in the classroom， therefore teacher talk， the language that teachers speak to organize the classroom is of importance. It is indispensable to control the students behaviors in class. The initial research on classroom discourse structure is conducted by Bellack （1966）. He divided classroom discourse into four steps. In the 1970s， the study of teacher talk was carried out by western scholars. Recently， domestic scholars begin to pay close attention to foreign language classroom discourse analysis. The well-known scholars are Zhao （1998）， Hu （2003）， Wang （2017） etc. The paper aims to make a research on teacher talk based on Speech Act Theory （Austin 1962）， which presents three acts. The study is to help teachers regulate teacher talk and raise their awareness of the importance of teacher talk. In that case， students are mostly likely to raise their interest in learning English and teachers have more effective communication with students.

二、Theoretical Framework

In the late 1950s， England philosopher Austin （1962） came up with Speech Act Theory. Austin abstracts three behaviors from a complete speech act： locutionary act， illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. Locutionary act refers to a behavior which conveys the literal meanings and complies with language habits; Illocutionary act means providing a valuable discourse with a special force and purpose. Perlocutionary act means the effect and influence on the hearer. Richards （1992） put forward that teacher talk refers to the professional language used by teachers to organize and engage in teaching in the second language class or foreign language class.

三、An Analysis of Teacher Talk

1. The Proportion of Types of Teacher Talk

Figure The Proportion of Types of Teacher Talk

The figure shows the proportion is generally harmonious. Among them， question accounts for a large proportion， which is 35%， followed by instruction， which accounts for 25%， and presentation accounts almost the same proportion. The least is greeting， which is only 3%. Feedback is also relatively rare. Under the model of student-centered classroom， teachers may be more inclined to ask questions， which can give students more space to think. And more feedback will make students feel at ease in class.

2. The Categories of Teacher Talk

（1） Teacher Greeting

Greetings can shorten the distance between teachers and students and lay a good foundation for classroom interaction. Based on Speech Act Theory， each speech of a speaker can simultaneously express or include three acts. For example： Good afternoon， boys and girls. Youth Day is coming， do you have any plans？? Teachers greeting best illustrate the three acts. When she makes the utterance， she first completes the locutionary act. The illocutionary act， namely， the purpose of the act is to greet students and guide students into todays topic. In addition， perlocutionary act is that teachers greetings lay a foundation for classroom interaction between teachers and students.

（2） Teacher Instruction

Teacher instruction is the language used by teachers to instruct students in class. Teacher instruction includes three types： declarative sentences， imperative sentences and interrogative sentences. Declarative sentences are used to give students orders. For example， the sentence “I hope you can remember the usage”. The teacher utters these words and expresses his locutionary act. The illocutionary act is to assign homework and hope students to remember this important usage after class. The perlocutionary act is that the students carefully memorize them after class. Imperative sentence is concise， decisive and powerful. After hearing such instructions， students tend to get nervous. Interrogative sentences express a feeling of kindness， and when the students receive the instruction， they feel less pressure. For example： “Could you please list something？”. The perlocutionary act is the students feel relaxed and answer the question actively.

（3） Teacher Question

As for the content of the question， Kearsley （1976） proposed the division should be made between display question and referential question. Display questions usually require only superficial understanding to test whether the learner knows such knowledge. Whereas referential questions require that the questioner does not know the answer， and in order to expand the information， the questioner is required to actively develop creative thinking （Richards and Lockhart 2000）. According to Speech Act Theory， display questions and referential questions both have three speech acts. for example： “Do you like travelling？” and “What kind of person do you think Xie Lei is？” The first is a display question and the latter is a referential question. The question itself is a locutionary act. The perlocutionary act respectively is that students just answer “Yes” or “No” following the teachers thought and the students answer the question actively， thus their thoughts are enlightened and be creative.

四、Conclusion

Based on Speech Act Theory， the paper analyzes the proportion of each type of teacher talk and the characteristics of teacher talk from five aspects： teachers greeting， instruction， presentation， question and feedback. And the research finds that the proportion of teacher talk is generally harmonious， reflecting the student-centered classroom mode. Some teachers do not have greetings， and some greetings are too simple， which is not conducive to teaching. Some teachers still use more display questions in class. Teachers mostly use simple sentences in class to present the language points. Most teachers give positive feedback to students. Because of the limited ability of the researcher， the paper has several limitations. And it needs to be further improved. It is expected that the studies will be more meaningful and deeper in the future. Despite the limitations of this study， it can help teachers regulate teacher talk， improve the quality of teacher talk and provide references for foreign language teaching in China.

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