优秀英语语言学毕业论文篇一
1. Introduction
1.1 Research Background
As a form of human communication, silence is necessary when students are thinkingover teachers’ questions in the classroom. But it can also become one of the main negativephenomena in language teaching. This thesis mainly focuses on the passive silence. As theChinese scholar Cheng Xiaotang (2000: 435) points out, in recent ESL / EFL literature, EastAsian (especially Chinese) learners of English as a foreign / second language have beenarguably reported to be silent and passive learners. They are reluctant to participate inclassroom discourse; they are unwilling to give responses; they do not ask questions; and theyare passive and over-dependent on the teacher. Obviously, Chinese students’ silence in EFL(English as a foreign language) class is a universal passive phenomenon which bringsnegative impacts on language teaching and it has caused much concern with foreign languageteachers.Studies by Swain (1985) and other scholars have suggested that language learning is farmore effective when learners are pushed to use the target language in productive tasks. Itindicates that target language activities are greatly important in language learning. So how topromote students’ target language use naturally becomes a great pedagogical issue that bothlanguage experts and teachers are interested in.In addition, the new curriculum reform of English in the 21st century demands thatcollege English teachers should put emphasis on the interaction between students and teacheror among students themselves. The two basic skills — listening and speaking are ratherimportant for an English learner to communicate. However, passive classroom silence indeedaffects its ongoing. If students keep silent on most occasions when the teacher gives questions,it can result in the dull class atmosphere and bring the class into an embarrassing situation. Ofcourse this is a big obstacle in language learning and impedes students’ improvement of oralproficiency and communicative competence. And eventually it turns the reform into a lipservice.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
With students of liberal arts and science majors as research subjects, the purpose of thisresearch is to find out the distinctive features of their silence, and analyze the causes in orderto propose some suggestions to ameliorate the embarrassing situation. Only when solutionsare found and used, will teachers know how to help their students to speak actively in class.Hopefully, this can help them to break the hard ice of silence in the classroom interaction soas to improve their English speaking proficiency and communicating competence.Specifically, this research tries to work out suitable strategies for students in variousspecialties by systematically analyzing their silence in English class. This aims at enhancingthe interactions between teacher and students in order to promote the students-centeredteaching mode and to achieve the ultimate goal of communicative English teaching. Therefore,this current research is of great significance both theoretically and practically.
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Defining Silence
Silence, just as speech, is one of the means of human communication. Just in recentdecades, scholars have gradually started to be concerned about the problem of silence.Nowadays, research on classroom silence arouses a growing attention in applied linguistics. Itis worth mentioning that the terms “silence” and “reticence” are exchangeable in the presentthesis, for there are no obvious distinctions between them. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010: 1431), silence is defined as:1) a situation when nobody is speaking; 2) a situation in which somebody refuses to talk aboutsomething or to answer questions; 3) a situation in which people do not communicate witheach other
