A Study Of The Attitude Resources In Classroom Discourse Of Excellent English Teachers In Middle School From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

Teacher discourse is the language that instructors use in the classroom to organize and implement instruction.It is a significant source of linguistic input for learners as well as a tool used by teachers to manage the classroom.The quality of teacher discourse directly affects the effectiveness of classroom teaching and students’ second language acquisition.Therefore,it is important to explore the classroom discourse of excellent middle school English teachers,which can also provide novice teachers with empirical references and pedagogical inspiration to improve their classroom discourse.It was found that there has been a great deal of research on teacher discourse and appraisal theory at home and abroad,especially on the patterns,characteristics,and functions of teacher discourse,but little has been done on the interpersonal meaning and affective factors of teacher discourse.Therefore,this study attempts to analyze teacher discourse in terms of the attitude system,a subsystem of appraisal theory,by conducting classroom observations of the 13 th national middle school English demonstration lessons and transcribing and analyzing its corpus to explore the following three questions:（1）What are the amount and distribution of the four functional features（the amount of the teacher discourse,teacher’s questioning,feedback and interactional adjustment）of excellent teachers’ classroom discourse in the 13 th national middle school English demonstration lessons?（2）What attitude resources are presented in the excellent teachers’ classroom discourse in national middle school English demonstration lessons? How are the attitude resources distributed in teachers’ questioning,feedback and interactional adjustment?（3）What are the functions of attitude resources in facilitating teacher-student interaction?The study found that（1）There are far more display questions than referential questions,and the classrooms where referential questions were used most frequently had the least quantity of total questions;there is far more positive feedback than negative feedback,where mixed feedback is the most frequent,followed by single and diverse feedback.Also,direct corrections are more frequent than indirect corrections;comprehension checks are used most frequently during negotiation of meaning,followed by confirmation checks and clarification requests.（2）In general,Teacher discourse is rich in attitude resources.Of these,appreciation resources were the most abundant,and the amount of affect and judgment resources was about equal.In addition,there are far more positive attitude resources than negative attitude resources.In detail,in terms of the functional features of teacher discourse,teachers’ feedback included the most attitude resources,followed by teacher questioning and interactional adjustment.Appreciation resources were used most frequently in teachers’ feedback,while judgement resources were used most frequently in teacher questioning and the negotiation of meanings.Each of these attitude resources has its own set of meanings.Their purpose is to liven up the classroom atmosphere and keep students engaged in English learning throughout.（3）Attitude resources have a facilitating role in the process of teacher-student interaction,such as reducing anxiety,creating contextual situations,motivating learning,and maintaining enthusiasm for learning.Finally,based on the above findings,this study suggests several pedagogical implications for middle school English teacher’s effective use of classroom discourse,such as teachers should pay more attention to classroom discourse and improve the quality of classroom discourse;teacher discourse should be authentic,illuminating and flexible;teachers can express their own emotions and attitudes as well as guide students to establish correct values by using more attitude resources.