| Politeness is a phenomenon existing at the interface of linguistic, social, and cognitive processes; it is conveyed through language and a result of a person's cognitive assessment of the social context. The classroom is viewed as a unique communication context with highly regulated patterns of communicative behavior that are actively negotiated between teachers and students. Politeness theory can make to our understanding of the classroom interaction, and provides a comprehensive high-leveled approach to teachers' language use.This study is an exploratory investigation of the college English teacher's language in the classroom context from the perspective of pragmatics. Within the framework of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, the present study has three major goals: (1) to explore how the politeness phenomenon is manifested in the context of Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom, (2) to summarize the typical politeness strategies adopted by teacher to satisfy the face wants of students, and describe the differences of politeness usage between male and female teachers, (3) to offer a rational alternative to explain the characteristics of teacher politeness in the classroom.Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness is an alternative to understand the nature of the classroom discourse. According to Brown and Levinson' theory (1987), we assume that certain kinds of actions of teachers performed in the classroom are intrinsically face-threatening. Such acts may threaten the students' positive or negative face. In order to satisfy the students' face wants and reduce the weightiness of FTAs, the teachers can manage five politeness strategies to deal with FTAs (face-threatening acts) in the process of teaching, namely, bald-on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record, and avoidance. These politeness strategies are manifested in teachers' speech acts, namely, directives (suggestion, request, and command), questions, and feedback or evaluation.The present study combines the qualitative and quantitive methods, and uses two techniques to collect the data with an intention of examining the politeness strategies used by the college teachers in the classroom context. One is the audio (video) recording of naturally occurring interactions presented in eight English classes as well as an observation, and then all materials are transcribed literally. The other is a discourse completion task (DCT) which is used to compare the differences of politeness applications between male and female teachers from the perspective of indirectness of politeness.The analyses and discussions of the research prove: (1) In the college EFL classroom, teachers take notice of politeness problems and students' face wants in the classroom interaction, and employ rich multilayered politeness strategies to redress intrinsic FTAs and thereby protect students' positive or negative face; these various strategies are demonstrated in the speech acts of directives, questions and feedback in teachers' discourse. (2) The politeness difference between the male and female teachers' language use can be manifested in terms of the indirectness of politeness strategies. (3) The major common features of classroom interaction, and power, distance and rating of imposition in the EFL classroom context are prevailing factors which can not only explain the characteristics of teachers' language use but also restrict English teachers' choice of politeness strategies.It has been suggested that teacher behavior is an important contributor to learner cognitive and affective outcomes. Teacher's politeness behavior can facilitate the harmonious relationship between teachers and students and motivate the students' learning impulse, and create happy and easy situation for the purpose of improving teaching quality. The present study about politeness strategies employed by college teachers in the Chinese EFL classroom are helpful for the teachers to understand their speech acts adequately, select more reasonable and more efficient communicative strategies accurately, and control the flow of lessons fluently. |
