An Analysis Of Classroom Discourse Of Junior Middle School English Teachers Based On Politeness Principle

Teacher talk is an important part in classroom teaching and the success of teaching greatly depends on the quality and quantity of teacher talk. English class cannot be separated from the communication between teachers and students, and without politeness we cannot communicate with others smoothly. Therefore, the proper applications of teachers’ politeness strategies have great influence on classroom teaching.Based on Leech’s politeness principles and Brown & Levinson’s politeness theories. This thesis tries to investigate how English teachers in middle schools apply politeness strategies, find out the problems in them, point out the differences between male and female English teachers,and finally discuss the influences of teaching on students learning. In order to do these, this thesis applies class observation, questionnaires, and interviews to collect data and use Excel2010 to analyze them.There are four main findings as follows.(1) The politeness strategies used by English teachers are distributed in greetings, directives, questions and feedback. In greetings, teachers often use simple greetings; In directives, teachers often use imperatives+please, let’s+do and so on; In questions, teachers often ask students to answer questions in turns or together, to repeat the questions, to simplify and explain the questions and so on; In feedback, teachers often show thanks, repeat students’ answers to represent agreement, and praise students and so on.(2) There are some problems in politeness strategies used by teachers. Some teachers use direct and tough directives and teachers’ feedback is not concrete sometimes.(3) Although there are some differences between male and female English teacher talk, the differences are not significant.(4)The politeness strategies used by teachers are beneficial for students’ learning. They are helpful for students’ cultivation of attitudes and cultural awareness. In addition, they are helpful for teachers to accomplish the teaching work smoothly.The present study shows the applications of politeness strategies in English class and provides the suggestions for English teachers. In order to create the harmonious classroom atmosphere, strengthen students’ confidence, improve students’ learning enthusiasm and stimulate students’ awareness of politeness, teachers should pay more attention to the proper applications of politeness strategies in classroom teaching.