A Research Proposal on Gender Differences of Conversational Repair in Junior School English Classroom

鄭占寧++溫琪琪

Introduction

Gender difference plays an important role in investigating linguistic behavior. Lakoff was the founder of scientific and systemic research in language and gender. Many researches on gender difference of language spoken in daily life. Few touched upon the gender difference of the classroom interactive conversations. Conversational repair is a common phenomenon in human language conversational interaction. While there is little attention paid to the empirical study of conversational repair in normal teaching environment， especially in junior middle school English classroom. The author puts forward research question：Are there gender differences in conversation repair in English classroom？ In order to explore the answer of the research question， the author conducted a survey of the observation in English class.

Data Collection method

Observational data can afford the researcher the opportunity to gather ‘live data from ‘live situations and look at what is taking place in situation rather than at second hand. There are three kinds of observations available to the researcher：highly structured observation， semi-structured observation， and unstructured observation. Based on research question， the author chooses structured observation to collect data. A structured observation enables the researcher to generate numerical data from observation. Numerical data， in turn， facilitate the making of comparisons between settings and situations， and frequencies， patterns and trends to be noted or calculated. Observation are entered on an observational schedule. The researcher will need to decided：the foci of the observation； the frequency of the observations； the length of the observation period； and the nature of the entry. Four principal ways of entering data onto a structured observation schedule：event sampling， instantaneous sampling， interval recording， and rating scale.

Data analysis

Firstly， owing to the conclusions must be based on strictly analysis of data， it is necessary for us to devote ourselves to analyzing all the data systematically with full attention. Avoiding drawing speculative conclusions because subjective things will not convincing. Be careful of avoiding the influence of our own bias at the data-analysis stage or will cause bad conclusion.

Secondly， using the diagrams instead of a large number of figures during analysis as possible as we can， which will help readers know what the researchers study and help readers more intuitively see the questions and conclusions. To ensure analysis of a certain logicality， data analysis is supposed to from shallow to deep， from broad to specific.endprint

Thirdly， analyzing the data， we should reference some data sources to ensure that we collect the data correctly， and then draw the correct conclusions to avoid misleading others. In order to give readers a better understanding of the conclusion we get， we are supposed to try to avoid creating too many difficult words， so as not to cause ambiguity to the readers.

Further study

Conversation repair is universal， and the frequency of repair in classroom is very high. Making a study of conversation repair is of great importance. Conversation repair is the basis to understand the nature of human daily conversation. According to the different gender characteristics of students， conversation repair strategy is different， adopting proper teaching measures， through conscious guidance and education， give full play to students in their respective language， memory， thinking， imagination， perception and take positive and effective measures， not only to promote students learning， but also promote the comprehensive and balanced personality the psychological development of students. The integration of conversational repair and language acquisition will have a broad research field.

References：

[1]Jefferson，G.（1974）.Error correction as an interactional resource.Journal of Language in Society，2，181-199.

[2]Lakoff，Robin.（1975）.Lannguage and Womens Place.NewYork：Harper and Rolo.

[3]Schegloff，E.A.，Jefferson，G.，&Sacks，H.（1977）.The Preference for Self-correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.Journal of Language，2，361-382.

[4]Trudgill，Peter.（1983）.Sociolinguistics：An Introduction to Language and Society.New York：Penguin.

[5]Zhu，Yarong.（2010）.On Teaching-initiated Repair—A Study Based on Data from Classrooms of Oral English.Shanghai International Studies University.

[6]何自然.語用學概論[M].長沙：湖南教育出版社，1988.

[7]劉羽榮.大學生英語課堂會話的性別差異研究[D].吉林大學，2009.

作者簡介：

鄭占寧（1992-），女，漢族，河北人，碩士研究生，學生，研究方向：外國語言文學。

溫琪琪（1995-），女，漢族，河北人，碩士研究生，學生，研究方向：外國語言文學。endprint