A Comparative Study Of Interpersonal Meaning Of Teacher Talk Between Chinese And Native English Teacher In MOOC Business English Teaching

Teacher talk refers to the speeches that language teachers use in their classroom teaching when they teach or impart knowledge.With the rapid development of society and technology,MOOC has gradually changed people’s learning styles with its convenience and innovation,which arouses the attention of many educational institutions,colleges and universities.Especially since the outbreak of the novel corona virus,the importance of MOOC has become increasingly prominent.Under the new situation of MOOC popularity,this thesis studies the characteristics of mood,modality and person systems and the realization effect of the interpersonal meaning of Chinese and foreign MOOC teacher talk from the perspective of interpersonal functional theory of systemic-functional grammar.The research data of Chinese teacher talk is from the course of Practice of Business English Writing in the platform of Chinese University MOOC,while the research data of foreign teacher talk is from Written Business Communication of Central Pennsylvania Community College in the platform of Netease Open Course.After collecting the teaching podcasts of the two courses,the author transcribes the teacher talk of the two courses to form the data for analysis.And then,the author will annotate the research data in the dimensions of mood,modality and person systems.So this thesis will mainly adopt the quantitative and qualitative method to study.This thesis finds that in terms of mood,the Chinese and foreign MOOC teachers both use declarative mood most frequently in their teacher talk,which shows that they mainly impart knowledge,and convey their attitudes,ideas or judgement about something to students by using declarative mood.Due to the limitations of MOOC teaching,the Chinese and foreign MOOC teachers seldom use interrogative and imperative clauses in their teaching,and their interactions with students are relatively deficient.Compared with general questions,the Chinese MOOC teacher is more inclined to use special questions,which shows that the teacher hopes to inspire students’ thinking through using special questions,and strengthen the interaction with students,while the use of general and special questions by the foreign teacher is more balanced.In the aspect of modality,the Chinese and foreign teachers are more likely to employ modal expressions of probability with low-median values.Besides,in modal orientation,they more like the employment of implicit subjective modal words.Therefore,it can be found that the Chinese and foreign MOOC teachers hope to leave more space for students to reflect and make a choice,and construct a harmonious and democratic relationship with students through the employment of modal expressions of probability with lowmedian values and implicit subjective modal words in their teaching.In person system,the second personal pronouns you,your take up the largest part in Chinese and foreign teacher talk.Because MOOC teaching is a kind of one-way communication mode,the Chinese and foreign MOOC teachers tend to use the second personal pronouns.Although the application of the second personal pronouns reflects that the Chinese and foreign MOOC teachers value students’ position in MOOC teaching activities,and regard students as independent-learning individuals,the excessive use of the second personal pronouns may cause a sense of alienation between teachers and students,rather than be good for establishing a mutual cooperative and coordinating relationship.In the application of the first personal pronoun,the foreign teacher is inclined to use the singular form of the first personal pronoun I in MOOC teaching,while the Chinese teacher employs the plural form of the first personal pronoun we more often,which demonstrates that the foreign teacher prefers to impart knowledge and express her attitudes,opinions,ideas of what she is teaching from her own perspective.To some extent,it also reflects the western individualism consciousness.By comparison,the Chinese teacher pays more attention to establishing an equal and close teacher-student relationship.She regards herself and students as a whole,and emphasizes cooperation and coordination with students in MOOC teaching.This thesis is a tentative study of MOOC teacher talk from the perspective of interpersonal meaning of systemic functional grammar.Its aim is to provide constructive suggestions for MOOC teaching,and arouse educational workers’ attention to teacher talk and its studies,so as to push the development of MOOC teaching to a higher level through the comparative study of the distribution,frequency,similarities and differences of mood,modality and person systems of MOOC teacher talk at home and abroad.