Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background

It is an important part during classes.As a means of conveying information, organizing and managing the class，teacher talkis gaining increasing recognition. In classroom，it is not only a tool for organizing teaching,and realizing teaching goals, but also the major source of students' language input.Therefore，teacher talk plays a significant role in second or foreign language acquisition. Inorder to persue teaching goals and improve teaching qualities in classroom, teachers shouldtake some measures to guide his or her teaching.Obviously, teacher talk is a kind of classroom interaction which belongs to humancommunication. Therefore, there is an indispensable factor in it, that is politeness.Politeness is one of conduct codes of human beings. As a social activity, language use issubjected to this code as well. Politeness plays a great role in human communication whichincludes teacher talk. The function of politeness is to keep congenial and harmoniousrelationships among people.Politeness is the symbol of human civilization，the basic standard of humancommunication，and the prerequisite of human cooperation. It's also the rule people abideby consciously and unconsciously in communication (Wang，2011). Politeness theory is ahot topic in pragmatics which plays a significant part in the field of applied linguistics. Andwith its rapid development in China, more and more scholars concern it with Englishclassrooms in Chinese context. The most influential theory of politeness is Brown &Levinson's Face Theory.

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1.2 Research Objective and Questions

In present study, the author is motivated to examine how politeness strategies arerealized in teacher talk of postgraduates' subject lessons. Within the frame work of Brown& Levinson's Face Theory，the analysis are made based on a corpus comprised of 491pieces of teacher talk concerning postgraduate subject lessons which including pragmatics,Conversation Analysis, Selected Readings of Current Affairs，Social Linguistics,Translation Studies，Stylistics, and Thesis Writing. By investigating the application ofpoliteness theory in teacher talk of postgraduates' subject lessons，the present study isintended to make clear whether and how politeness strategies used by teachers improveteaching qualities，and set up harmonious atmospheres in classroom.Keeping the objective in mind，the present study attempts to answer the followingquestions:Firstly，do students have face wants, are teachers aware of students' face wants in thecontext of classroom, and do teachers pay any attention to the politeness use in their talkand employ various politeness strategies to satisfy students' face wants?Secondly, what are the main classifications of politeness strategies used by teachers?Thirdly, whether politeness strategies used by teachers can improve teaching qualitiesand the interaction in postgraduates' subject lessons?Finally, what are the similarities and differences of teacher's employment ofpoliteness strategies between undergraduates' and postgraduates' classes?

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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Studies on Teacher Talk

Teacher talk，as its name implies, is the speech uttered by teachers in class.Encyclopedic dictionary of applied linguistics defines teacher talk as "the term used todescribe the register that a teacher uses in class with learners. It includes the aspects ofteacher behavior such as error correction, simplification, reduction, explanation and talkingtime distribution (Johnson and Johnson, 1998:320)."For this term, Longman Dictionary ofLanguage Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines it as "that variety of language used byteachers when they are in the process of teaching (Richards, 1992:47)."Besides these dictionaries, many researchers also have given the definitions of teachertalk. According to Ellis (1994)，teacher talk means teachers address classroom languagelearners differently from the way they address other kinds of classroom learners. Theymake adjustments to both language form and language function in order to facilitatecommunication. These adjustments are referred to as 'teacher talk'. Chaudron (1983)summarizes from the linguistic perspective that "TT is these speech used by teachers whichis characteristically modified in phonology, lexis, syntax and discourse. Sometimes teachertalk can be called teachers' language (Richard, 1992)，teachers' speech (Ellis, 1985) orteaches’ utterances (Ellis, 1985) etc. Though they come in different shapes, they havesomething in common. They are all the words spoken by the teachers in class.

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2.2 Studies on Politeness Theories

Politeness belongs to the field of applied linguistics. In recent years, it is becoming apopular topic in pragmatics. Many researchers focus their attention on it and have set uptheir own theories and works in this field. Among them, Lakoff, Grice，Leech, Brown &Levinson are the most important figures, and their theories will be discussed in detail. “Politeness” has been an important topic for sociology, anthropology, psychology andinterrelated social sciences. However, it was not until the 70s that the concept became amajor issue in pragmatics. Politeness plays a vital role in communication. It helps maintaina harmonious interpersonal relationship between people.Many theorists have tried to offer definitions of politeness from the scientific view.Robin Lakoff (1975:64) "politeness is developed by societies in order to reducefriction in personal interaction”.Leech (1980:19) politeness is “strategic conflict avoidance" which，，can be measuredin terms of "the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation”.Brown and Levinson (1978) politeness “as a complex system for softening facethreats".Hill, Ide，Ikuta, Kawasaki, and Ogino (1986:349) define it as “one of the constraintson human interaction^whose purpose is to consider others' feelings, establish levels ofmutual comfort, and promote rapport". Moreover, Ide (1989:225) views it as ‘languageusage associated with smooth communication'.Kasper (1990:194) "communication is seen as fundamentally dangerous andantagonistic endeavor". Politeness is therefore a term to refer to the strategies availableto interactants to defuse the danger and minimalize the antagonism.Fraser (1990) views politeness as the implementation of conversational rights andobligations as speaker and hearer operate under the ‘"terms and conditions of theconversational contract”.

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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework........ 20

3.1 Face  ........ 20

3.2 Face-Threatening Act........ 21

3.3 Politeness Strategies........ 21

3.4 The Analytical Model of the Present Study........ 23

Chapter Four Research Methodology ........24

4.1 Research Questions........     24

4.2 Research Design ........    24

4.3 Data Collection ........  27

4.4 Data Analysis ........27

Chapter Five Results and Discussion........ 31

5.1 Politeness Characteristics of Teacher Talk ........31

5.2 Teachers' Employment of Politeness Strategies in Questions........ 33

5.3 Teachers' Employment of Politeness Strategies in Feedbacks........ 41

5.4 The Importance of Teachers' Employment of Politeness Strategies........ 53

5.5 T Politeness Strategies betweenDifferent Classes........ 54

Chapter Five Results and Discussion

5.1 Politeness Characteristics of Teacher Talk

The first question proposed by the author is “Do students have face wants, are teachersaware of students' face wants in the context of classroom? And do teachers pay anyattention to the politeness use in their talk and employ various politeness strategies tosatisfy students' face wants? If so，what are the politeness characteristics of teacher talk? ”So to address this question, on the basis of the transcription of the tape recordings, and thelog during observation, the answers for each sub-question will be provided and discussed. According to the observation and the transcriptions of the tape recordings, it is shownthat students had strong face wants in the context of classroom，and they all wantedteachers to take some measures to satisfy their face wants，no matter positive face wants ornegative face wants. And basically speaking, teachers always pay attention to students'face wants. According to Brown & Levinson's Face Theory, in this study，they adoptedfour politeness strategies to satisfy students' needs, that is bald-on-record strategy, positivepoliteness strategy，negative politeness strategy，and off-record strategy.These four politeness strategies play an important role in protecting students' face，satisfying their face wants. And also it is helpful to promote the interactions. Theemployment of politeness strategies is a good way for the cooperation between teachersand students. For these four politeness strategies, there are many specific polite ways, andin the next part of this chapter，the author will discuss them one by one.

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Conclusion

Teacher talk is an important part of teachers' behaviors during class. Especially in theEnglish classes, it is helpful for students' language acquisition. Therefore，teacher talkaroused many scholars interests，and took it as the research object. And as to politeness, itis one of the important principles for guiding peoples' communication, which includes theinteractions between teachers and students. So there are many researches about thepoliteness in teacher talk.However, some researchers study teacher talk and politeness theory separately.Certainly，there are many studies about politeness theory in teacher talk. But previousstudies about teacher talk from the perspective of politeness strategy mainly concern theundergraduates' English lessons of non-English majors. Fewer researchers lay equal stresson English postgraduate's subject lessons. Therefore, based on the previous researches, inthe present study, the author is motivated to inquire into politeness strategies in teacher talkof English postgraduate's subject lessons.

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Reference (omitted)