A Study Of Turn-taking Strategies In College English Teaching-an Adaptation Perspective

Turn is a basic unit of conversation, which was first put forward by Sacks,Schegloff and Jefferson in1974. Sacks at al consider that turn has two levels ofmeaning: one refers to the right to speak; the other refers to the discourse uttered bythe addresser from the beginning to the end. The distribution of turns in conversationshows the distribution of the right to speak. According to Sacks’ study, turns can bemade up of single word, phrases, clause and sentence. In recent years, turn-takingphenomenon has drawn much attention, more and more researchers aboard and athome have already participated in the study of turn-taking. They make more cleardefinition of turn, add complement to the rules of turn-taking, and study the skills ofturn-taking and the influences on college English teaching. However, the study onturn-taking strategy in college English teaching from the angle of adaptation is few.This study aims to make a study of the use of turn-taking strategy in college Englishteaching from a perspective of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory, which will analyzeturn-taking strategy from the dynamic angle and reveal the dynamic adaptability ofturn-takings in college English teaching to achieve the development of previousstudies. Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory is the theoretical framework of this study.The study intends to discover the dynamic adaptability of turn-taking strategy by threenotions of the Adaptation Theory: variability, negotiability, adaptability. This studyaims to answer three questions:(1) What types of turn-taking do teachers adopt in college English classroomteaching?(2)What are the influences on teaching effect after teachers put turn-takingstrategy into daily teaching process?(3) Why do teachers adopt turn-taking strategy in teaching process?The author employed an empirical study in this thesis. Six teachers and116 college students who come from Information and Economy College of JilinUniversity of Finance and Economics join in this empirical study. These six teachersall teach non-English majors college English class with teaching experiences of threeto ten years, two of whom have aboard studying experiences. The116students fromdifferent English level classes major in International Trade and Science of Computer.The author of this study sent out two parts of questionnaires to these students at thebeginning and at the end of the term aiming to compare the changes of students’learning attitudes, situations after adopting turn-taking strategy in teaching process soas to find out the influences of turn-taking strategy on college English teaching. Inorder to get more authentic data, the author records the teaching process of the sixteachers, which help the author gather recording materials. With the transcription andsystematic analysis of the recording materials, the author acquires the commonly usedtypes of turn-taking in college English teaching process. At the same time, the authorinterviews the six teachers and nine students from the selected classes with contentsmainly concerning the influences of turn-taking strategy on college English teachingand the reasons why teachers adopt the turn-taking strategy in order to discover thedynamic adaptability of turn-taking strategy.The author expects that this study on the dynamic adaptability of turn-takingstrategy in college English class can draw more teachers’ attention on turn-takingstrategy, enhance teachers’ awareness of adaptability and arouse more teachers to useturn-taking strategy properly in teaching process so as to improve the effects andquality of college English teaching.