Study On Teaching Speech Art Of Harvard Justice Public Class Under Relevance Theory

The teaching speech art of the Harvard justice public classes has received much less attention from the academic circle than such comprehensively explored topics as the speech art of advertisements, witty skits, cross talks, talk show programs, or debate competitions. Successful communications between professor and students are considered to be ostensive-inferential cognitive process in Relevance Theory (Sperber, D.&Wilson, D.,1986) and teaching speeches are considered as the ostensive stimulus in ostensive communication. Hence, the teaching speeches during the speculative process can thus be elucidated under relevance theory.The present paper attempts to conduct a case study on professor Michael Sandel’s Harvard public classes (12videos in all collected from the Net Ease) from the perspective of relevance theory to probe into the speculative processes and the strategies employed in the teaching speeches of this public classes with an expectation to get a better understanding of them and provide reference for the development and research of public classes and other talk show programs at home.In the data collecting process, examples of great wisdom of humor, and/or of clear and compact logic are clearly marked, and those which have aroused big laughter and applauses are literally scripted, and questions raised and case examples quoted by Michel Sandel are accordingly listed. Then, these data are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively (though only marginally) to summarize the characteristics of professor’s speech individuality: clear and compact logic, full of humor and wisdom, filled with visually-inspired case examples, having timely summary, showing emotional consideration for students, filled with amusement and science, manifesting high-frequency interaction.Then, this paper reclassifies the characteristics of teaching speeches into three broader categories:teaching speeches of clear logic and preciseness, showing emotional consideration for students, and speeches of humor. The author attempts to analyze the interpretation of the first two categories of speeches under relevance theory to further the understanding of the teaching speeches. Then through analysis, the formation mechanisms of speeches of humor under relevance theory are located as: collision of maximal relevance and optimal relevance; implied intention aroused by ostensive information; extra effects caused by extra processing efforts. Next, this paper classifies the teaching speeches from presentation approach perspective into four: expository speeches, descriptive speeches, discussing speeches and conclusive speeches and interprets their functions respectively under relevance theory. Finally, this paper gives some suggestions for improving teaching speech art. This paper finds that: relevance theory possesses strong explanatory power for teaching speech art, because teaching speech in class instruction can be considered as an ostensive stimulus in ostensive communication.