The Application Of Relevance Theory To Teacher-Student Interaction In EFL Class

Relevance Theory has been concentrating on language teaching since its birth. Nowadays many domestic researches have demonstrated its great value in the fields of listening and reading teaching. This essay attempts to broaden this theory's scope of application and take the initial step to apply RT to the course of teacher-student interaction in EFL class. In practical perspective, EFL classroom is the major place for most students to learn English. English teaching, to a certain degree, is not only a process of language cognition, but also a process of interaction between teacher and student. RT, which focuses on the general communication and cognition style, is of great benefit for this special communication form. T-S interaction in EFL classroom calls for RT's direction.In the light of RT, this thesis constructs a new T-S interaction mode in EFL class—RT Guided T-S Interaction Mode, which regards English teaching as an "ostensive—inferential" communication between teacher and student. Through ostensive behaviors, teachers in EFL class, try every means to enlarge students' cognitive environment and develop their communicative and cognitive competences, while by inferential behaviors, students accomplish their tasks for language cognition and communication. In order to make this research more convincing, the author did a comparing experiment in Changsha Social Work College. The results have demonstrated the great advantages of the new mode.At the end of the thesis, the author puts forward some feasible suggestions for the current reform of TEFL:1. Focus on the cultivation of students' communicative and cognitive competences; highlight their dominant position of language acquisition in the process of "ostensive—inferential" interaction between teacher and student;2. Emphasize language culture input and the important roles of implicit information and students' emotion in EFL Gass; extend students' dynamic cognitive context and T-S mutual manifestness;3. Diversify Teachers' questioning skill and T-S interaction forms; pursue "optimal relevance" in T-S interaction to improve the efficiency of EFL class.We sincerely hope that these thoughts would bring some enlightenment to the current reform of TEFL...