Silence acts as politeness strategy in the classroom——A case study of Chinese teacher students in intercultural MA classroom

IntroductionWith the development of paralinguistics, nonverbal interactions have drawn more and more attention (Larry et.al 2000) and silence is considered as the nonverbal interaction strategy in communication activities. Linguists

The Genre-based Language Teaching

1. Background The product approach which was the dominant approach since the 1970semphasizes the learning outcomes mainly, considering the learning output asthe result of the imitation of input in the form of texts provided by teacher only.It ignores the actual processes used by the students. So in the mid-1970s theprocess approach became to replace the product approach. The process ap-proach sees language learning more form a cognitive perspective which focuseson the mental process of learning, regardless the linguistic knowledge such asthe grammar and text structure, as well as the culture context. According toBurns(2000), the process approach'has emphasised inquiry learning, processand naturalism but has neglected to offer learners systematic explanations ofhow language functions in various social context'(Burns, 2000, P.200). Hy-land (2002) argues that process approach 'lack of engagement with the so-cial-political realities of students'everyday lives and target situations'(p. 20).So there appears a new approach called genre-based approach which beginsto attract great attention in language teaching and learning in the mid-1980s.This approach is originated from a systemic functional theory of language(SFL) developed by Halliday(1978, 1994). Martin described genre as'staged,goal-orientated social activity in which speakers engage as members of ourculture'(Martine et al.1987). Elaborated by Martin and Christie that'thegenre model emphasizes the ways how language is systematically construct inspecific context through patterns of lexico-grammatical and rhetorical fea-tures'( Martin & Christie, 1997; cited in Hyland, 2003 ). Genre approach wasalso influenced by two schools of genre theory: the New Rhetorical approachwhich studies genre as 'motivated, functional relationship between text typeand rhetorical situation'(Coe, 2002, p.195) and the English for special pur-poses (ESP) approach which sees genre as a label of groups of communicativeevents that share some common linguistic features and broad social purpose(Swales, 1990, p.45-47). In the view of the new rhetorical approach, Genresnot only respond to specific contexts but also reshape those contexts in theprocess of responding to them. Interplay and interaction are at the core of lan-guage use(Freedman, 1994).Contemporary genre theory within the Australian context draws uponsystemic functional linguistic theory, especially developed by Halliday(1994),Hasan(1996), Martin(1992) and Matthiessen(1995), as well as many educa-tional linguists. We can read of its application in large-scale LI projects suchas the Disadvantaged Schools Programme in Australia (Callaghan, Knapp &Noble, 1993), and in various L2 settings in a number of countries(Hyland1990, Swales 1990, Marshall 1991, Bhatia 1993, and Flowerdew 1993). Thesignificant feature of genre is the participant relationship. According to Martin(1987), genre refers to 'the relationship between social function and the pre-dictable patterning of language'(Martin, et al., 1987). Similarly, Hyland con-cludes that genre theorist consider the participant relationships