Analysis On Classroom Teaching Language From The Perspective Of Politeness Principle

Teacher’s language refers to the language applied by the teacher in the classroom. Andteachers’ language includes the teacher’s instruction, teacher-student interaction language andthe language of teachers’ modification. Further more, teacher’s language is used to instructroutine teaching communication and organize classroom activities. Teachers-students languagecommunication plays an important role in the classroom. The teacher’s use of the politenesscan help the students understand the connotation of the text as well as improve the languagecompetence of students. Appropriate teacher’s language can inspire the students’ interests andmotivation. Teacher should pay attention to the politeness in the use of language duringteacher-students communication. But in daily communication between teachers and students,many teachers fail to use politeness principle tactfully or appropriately. Students can beaffected passively by teacher’s language.Politeness Principle is a series of maxims, which Geoffrey Leech has proposed as a wayof explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges. Leech defines politeness asa type of behaviour that allows the participants to engage in a social interaction in anatmosphere of relative harmony. The most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness isfrom Brown and Stephen Levinson, which was first published in1978and then refined in1987.In their opinion, politeness is defined as an action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effectof face-threatening acts (FTAs). The basic notion of their model is “face”. In their framework,face consists of two related aspects. One is negative face, or the rights to territories, freedom ofaction and freedom from imposition, wanting the actions not to be constrained or inhibited byothers. The other is positive face, the positive consistent self-image that people have and theirdesire to be appreciated and approved of by other people. Politeness Principle is important andgreatly meaningful in teacher-students communication. People should observe it incommunication. And it is also needed in English class which involves the communicationbetween teacher and students. To construct the harmonious atmosphere in the class and obtainideal teaching effects, the author makes a linguistic study with regard to lexicon, tense andvoice, and other syntactic devices in teaching language based on the Politeness Principle.The thesis is conducted through a qualitative research. The data of the thesis is collectedby tape-recording, video and transcript. The objects of the study are in all five English teachersfrom the College of Foreign Language for Trade and Economics in Shanxi University ofFinance and Economy. The author analyzes the five teacher’s language in classroom from theaspects of lexeme, syntax, tense and voice and then comes to the following conclusions. As to the Negative face, firstly, the indefinite personal pronoun and hedging words could weaken thecommand, and the appropriate usage of nominalization could minimize the hurt of listener’sface. Secondly, the application of passive voice can also weaken the damage degree of face.Thirdly, conditional clauses and interrogative sentences with modal verbs decrease theexpectancy of competence of listeners and save the face. As to the Positive face, firstly, thesubstation of “I”“you” by “we” keeps the speaker in the same position with the listener ineither emotion or status. And the words of appreciation meet the need of listeners’ face-savingto some degree. Secondly, the appreciation of pessimism and presupposition in sentence alsoholds the same function as former one does.Through the research, the author gets the following conclusion. To a great extent, theteacher’s use of polite language and the application of politeness strategies cultivate thestudents’ language competence in the interaction of students and teachers in the classroom. Inthis process, the teacher complies with the Politeness Principle in the maximum, he/she canguarantee the smooth interaction in the classroom, besides, it can increases the students’learning enthusiasm and encourage them to be active in the interactivities. On this basis,teacher’s language arouses the students’ interests in their studies. Thus, we can promote theteaching quality and guarantee the teaching effect. At the same time, students learn to treatothers politely and improve their language communicative competence.