Empirical Research Of Teachers’ Classroom Discourse In Senior High School English Quality Reading Classes Based On The Appraisal Theory

Teachers’ classroom discourse(TCD),as an important instrument for teachers to implement their teaching plans,plays a crucial role in organizing classroom instruction and learners’ language acquisition.However,studies on TCD have mainly focused on language structure,language function,and language style,less attention has been paid to the interpersonal functions of TCD in the classroom.As one of the three meta-functions of discourse,the interpersonal function is of great significance to the construction of relationship.In light of that,this thesis takes Martin’s appraisal theory(AT)as the theoretical basis,based on the three sub-systems of appraisal theory:attitude,engagement,and graduation,explores the appraisal resources of TCD in senior high school English quality reading classes in depth.Based on that,this research collects the TCD of eighteen quality English reading classes that won the first prize in 2020,2021,and 2022 online National High School English Teachers’ Basic Teaching Skills Competitions as the corpus.The data are annotated and counted with the help of corpus software UAM Corpus Tool.Finally,the discourse analysis approach is employed to conduct qualitative analysis.The two research questions are as follows:(1)What are the distribution features of appraisal resources of TCD in senior high school English quality reading classes?(2)How are appraisal resources implemented by teachers to build a friendly teacher-student relationship,and facilitate English teaching and learning in senior high school English quality reading classes?The findings are as follows:(1)Attitude resources take up the largest proportion,followed by engagement resources.Graduation resources comprise the least proportion.In attitude resources,the proportion of appreciation resources ranks the first place,followed by affect resources,and judgement resources are least used.In engagement resources,dialogic expansion resources outnumber dialogic contraction resources.In graduation resources,force resources far exceed focus resources.(2)In attitude resources,teachers use positive affect resources to realize the emotional interaction with students so as to establish an equal and harmonious teacher-student relationship.Judgment resources are utilized to express recognition of students’ ability so as to enhance students’ self-confidence.Appreciation resources are employed to evaluate students’ active classroom performance so as to increase students’ enthusiasm to participate in class activities.In reading teaching,teachers employ attitude resources contained in classroom discourse to achieve emotional resonance with students,improve students’ appreciation ability of objects in the discourse,and help students to judge the emotional attitude conveyed by discourse so as to form the right values and excellent qualities that conform to social moral norms.In engagement resources,dialogic expansion resources are utilized to provide students with more opportunities for class performances so as to achieve negotiation of meaning and reach cognitive consensus between teachers and students.Dialogic contraction resources are employed to demonstrate teachers’ authority and professionalism so as to gain students’ trust and respect.In reading teaching,teachers employ engagement resources contained in classroom discourse to guide students to infer writers’ intentions and deeply explore the attitude and stances of the reading discourse so as to achieve the construction of evaluative meaning.In graduation resources,force resources are used to strengthen the positive evaluation of students’ classroom performance so that students can feel teachers’ strong recognition so as to establish a friendly teacher-student relationship and create a harmonious class atmosphere.In reading teaching,teachers apply graduation resources contained in classroom discourse to guide students to perceive the intensity of the teachers’ narrative attitude so as to identify deep attitudinal trends and implicit attitudinal meaning.Based on the above findings,some suggestions are provided for in-service and pre-service teachers: Teachers should be aware of the effectiveness of appraisal resources in high school English reading classes,master the implementation features of various resources,and purposefully make rational use of appraisal resources.It is conducive to promoting the establishment of the excellent teacher-student relationship and the construction of the harmonious class atmosphere,while facilitating the continuous improvement of teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.