高职院校英语课堂中沉默现象的研究

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

对于人类来说,有两种形式的语言交流了口头和非口头语言。口头语言是指非口头语言的口语和书面语言形式的同时不涉及任何文字。语言都贡献了很多人类沟通。据伯德惠斯特尔(1970),口头语言非口头语言表达60%以上的信息在我们的日常沟通,而30-35%的信息传输。非口头语言的研究已经证明了它的重要性在人际交往,尤其是在跨文化的互动和具体的论述。沉默,作为一个独特的非语言的沟通方式,有很长一段时间抓住人们的注意力和灵感在中文和英文两种语言的关注。中国人民以及其他国家,开发了一些经常使用的成语和谚语来表示的重要性和作用的沉默。中文和英文的语言共享一个类似的谚语:“沉默是金”。在英语中,人们强调沉默的价值的谚语,如“没有智慧就像是沉默。”和“沉默也很少伤害。”

For human beings, there are two forms of languages available to communicatethrough ―verbal and non-verbal languages. The verbal language refers to the spoken andwritten forms of languages while non-verbal language does not involve any word. Bothof the languages contribute a lot to human communication. According to Birdwhistell(1970), verbal language transmits 30-35% information in our daily communication whilenon-verbal language conveys over 60% information. Researches on the non-verballanguage have proved its importance in human communication, especially ininter-cultural interaction and specific discourses.Silence, as a unique way of non-verbal communication, has for a long time caughtpeople's attention and inspired concerns in both Chinese and English languages. Chinesepeople, as well as other nations, have developed some quite frequently used idioms andproverbs to indicate the importance and functions of silence. Chinese and Englishlanguages share a similar proverb: "Silence is golden." In English language, peopleemphasize the value of silence by using the proverbs like "No wisdom is like silence."and "Silence does seldom harm.

" 中国人持有的信念,“你越说,你犯的错误越多”,“舌头刎”,在日常的谈话,沉默是值得重视和关注,就像语音。由于沃斯基指出,在1993年,在通信沉默的研究应该被视为同样有效和互补讲话。作为高盛Eister节目的统计,约5%-65%的通话时间(平均高达40%-50%)是被占领的沉默(高盛Eister的,1968年)。沉默最初的语言框架内讨论,在1959年时,霍尔的无声的语言发表。在这本书中,霍尔指出,沉默是一个非言语的线索提供给定组的文化信念和行为。从那时起,一直沉默的研究主要是从相互关联的角度,心理学,语用学,社会文化等。

Chinese people hold the belief that "The more youspeak, the more mistakes you make.", and "The tongue cut the throat,"In daily conversations, silence deserves attention and concern just as speech does.As Jaworski points out in 1993 that in the research of communication silence should betreated as equally valid and complementary as speech. As the statistics of Goldman-Eistershow, about 5%-65% of conversation time (averagely as much as 40%-50%) is occupiedby silence. Silence was initially discussed within the linguisticframework in 1959 when Hall's The Silent Language was published. In the book, Hallpoints out that silence is a provision of non-verbal clues to the cultural beliefs andbehaviors of a given group. Since then, silence has been studied mainly from interrelatedperspectives of psychology, pragmatics, socio-culture and so on.

Silence exists not only in social communication, but also in EFL classroom.According to Harmer, a successful foreign language classroom is based on elements ofengaging, studying and activating, which means classroom teaching can't go withouteffective interaction between the teacher and students, and am ong students in activitieslike group discussion, debates and the basic pattern of asking and answering questions.However, in English classroom of Chinese h

igher vocational colleges, many studentsoften respond to teachers' initiations or questions with silence so as to avoid direct communication and participation.Silence can be interpreted to be either positive or negative. If something positiveunderlies in silence, it is positive. For example, silence may be a symbol of beingrespectful, or rapport between close friends who don't need to make utterances beforethey understand each other perfectly. Or silence can be negative when it hides negativeintentions like anger, disdain and so on. Thus student's silence in classroom should beanalyzed carefully in that il conveys multiple meanings. 1.2 Research purpose

The turn-silence in English classroom of higher vocational colleges is the focus ofthis thesis. With the guidance of Sack's turn-taking theory, the phenomenon and causes ofstudent's turn-silence is scheduled to be discussed. The author will make some furthersuggestions in hope of being references for teachers in practical teaching procedure.

1.3 Thesis layout

The thesis covers five sections.Section one of the thesis is an overview of the research background, followed by themajor objective and the significance of the research. The research background covers theimportance, definition and existence of students' silence in EFL classroom. The majorobjective and the significance of the research combine the current situation of highervocational college English classroom and the reformation in English education in recentyears.Section two comes up with a review on relevant literature. As turn-silence is anessential concept in conversation analysis, an introduction to conversation analysiscovers the first part of the review. The thesis then deals with turn-taking system and itsrule. Adjacency pair and turn-silence are the important concepts of the thesis and deservemuch discussion.Section three presents the research design of the study, including research purposes,participants and instruments. With 84 students of Accounting and Hotel Managementmajors participating, the research employs 3 instruments including classroom observation,tape-recording and questionnaires.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Conversation analysis

In social communications, individuals are involved in interaction with each other bytalking. In recent decades, conversation has drawn wide attention from researchers inphilosophy, linguistics and other fields.Developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the sociologist Harvey Sacks andhis associates Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, conversation analysis (CA) is anapproach to the study of social interactions in situations of everyday life, embracing bothverbal and non-verbal conducts. People exchange information and express ideas throughconversations, which is actually a social use of language among people. CA aims atrevealing the organizational characteristics of naturally occurring talk by a review ontape-recordings and transcriptions which are based on these recordings. Datatranscriptions can present the recorded materials in written form, and provide theresearcher with details of interactions that may miss average listeners.The normal pattern of conversations is people talking to each other about a certaintopic.

Thus conversation usually consists of one speaker and an addressee, andsometimes one speaker and more than one addressee. For example, conversation occursbetween a teacher and students, a lecturer and audience, etc. The two parties (the speakerand the addressee or addressees) are not enc

ouraged to speak at the same time. Instead,they speak in turn. One turn ends and the next turn begins. In the process of releasing andreceiving turns, a conversation goes on. Thus a turn is the fundamental element of talk,and turn-taking is the fundamental form of organization of conversation. The next partwill be an intensive introduction of turn-taking system.