A Study On Politeness Strategies Of Teacher Talk In College Of EFL Context

The further reform of college English teaching and learning presents a great challenge to English teachers. Teacher talk, as a means of conveying information, organizing and managing the class, is gaining increase recognition. Teacher talk can be realized by teachers in the classroom interaction. Politeness plays an important role in human communication. The choice of different politeness strategies more or less can lead to the success of the communication or not. Such politeness strategies also work in the classroom interaction between the teachers and students. In this thesis, the researcher tries to combine teacher talk with the politeness strategies in order to investigate the application of politeness strategies in teacher talk in EFL context and the feedback to the application of politeness strategies from students.Brown & Levinson's face-saving politeness theory and related studies on politeness and indirectness, politeness and context, politeness and power, politeness and status form the theoretical foundation of this research. Ten English teachers and one hundred students are chosen as the subjects. All the data were collected from the recording and the questionnaire and analyzed by Blum-kulka's three levels of directness and Sifianou's speech modification.The results of the analysis and discussions are as follows:(1) Most of English teachers can use politeness strategies properly in the classroom interaction.(2) The direct strategy is used by the teachers frequently due to the unique features of teacher talk in the classroom.(3) Conventionally indirect strategy can be marked to be the most polite speech act in teacher talk(4) Most of English teachers are aware of the important role of politeness strategies in English teaching, and make greater efforts to create a harmonious and friendly atmosphere in order to achieve the desired teaching goals.