This thesis is composed of four chapters。 Chapter one is an introduction, which briefly introduces the background, the significance and the purpose of the thesis,   and

finally presents the structure of the thesis。 Chapter two is a literature review on basic theory and current situation。 Chapter three focuses on methodology of this study, including the research questions and data collection。 Chapter four is the main and essential part of this study。 It shows the analysis of the relationship between the teacher talk and students’ learning efficiency and analyzes the application of face theory in three important teaching procedures, namely, instruction, questioning, and feedback。 Part five concludes the whole thesis, presents the limitation of the study and gives some suggestions for further exploration of teacher talk。

2。 Literature Review

What is teacher talk? The definition is rather simple and self-evident。 Teacher talk refers to the language teacher use in the second language or foreign language classroom。 Analogous to parents or care-takers to children in children language acquisition, teachers in class also play the role of adjusting their speech to  the learner’s proficiency level。 This kind of speech is called teacher talk, or foreigner talk。 Such speech shares similar features with motherese。 It has such characteristics as low rate of speech, high speech, rich intonation, simpler and shorter sentences, frequent paraphrase, and limited vocabulary (Dai 144)。 Through these modifications, teachers make sure that they are providing the proper input, i。e。 the comprehensible input so that students can understand most of it but still be challenged to make progress。 According to Krashen, “Teaching a second language means  creating for students a part or all their new language environment。 The entire responsibility for creating the language environment falls on the teacher who is teaching a language that is not used in the community。 ” (Krashen 1)论文网

Goffman proposes the face theory and defines “face” as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact。” (Goffman 5)

Based on Goffman’s theory, Brown and Levinson raise the Face-saving  Theory

or Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs)。 Brown and Levinson define face as a kind of public image that every social member wants to earn。 (Brown & Levinson 61) They think each communication participant has two faces: positive face and negative face。 Positive face means the positive consistent self-image or “personality” (mainly including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants。 Negative face means the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction, i。e。 the freedom of action and not to be imposed by others。 (Brown & Levinson 61) In the process of communicating with others, the public image can be lost, maintained or enhanced and therefore must be constantly attended to。 In order to succeed in interpersonal communication, one needs to take good care of one’s interlocutor’s positive and negative face。 To do so, one needs to attend to his or her interest, feelings, physical state, material benefit, opinions, and so forth。 (Chen 167)。

However, in social interactions, face-threatening acts (FTAs) are at times inevitable based on the terms of the conversation。 Brown and Levinson state “certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face。” (Brown & Levinson 68) That is to say, nearly all the speech acts are face-threatening acts (FTAs)。 Some speech acts can be a threat to the hearer’s positive face by indicating speaker’s lack of concern for the self-image。 Moreover, some speech acts are threatening to the speaker rather than to the hearer by either offending the speaker’s positive face wants or negative face wants。 Some speech acts like requesting and apologizing are intrinsically face threatening acts (FTAs)。 Even thanking, which signifies one’s “debt” to the addressee and thus obligation to acknowledge it, is considered to involve threat to one’s own negative face。 Brown and Levinson propose that the potential face threat can be minimized if “S considers H to be in important respects ‘the same’ as he, with in-group rights and duties and expectations of reciprocity, or by the implication that S likes H so that the FTA does not mean a negative evaluation in general of H’s face。” (Brown & Levinson文献综述