Article 1
On the present situation and restrictive factors of language teaching
China's entry into WTO has brought great opportunities to China's economy, and also put forward higher requirements for English talents, especially those who know business knowledge. In view of this phenomenon, many schools are thinking about adjusting the talent training program. As a business English teaching in higher vocational colleges, our goal is to cultivate compound talents with certain English listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating abilities and knowledge of international business and trade, which also puts forward higher requirements for our business English teaching.
First, the status quo of business English teaching
At present, although many schools are actively reforming the teaching mode and trying to keep up with the requirements of the times and the goal of talent training, there are still many shortcomings in teaching practice: traditional teaching modes such as "cramming" and "centralized teaching" still exist; In the choice of teaching materials and teaching methods, it is often impossible to combine the students' reality and ignore the characteristics of higher vocational students; Too rigidly copy the mode of business plus English teaching, pay too much attention to the knowledge involved in the book itself, and ignore the cultivation of students' potential business culture consciousness. These teaching modes and methods often lead to poor teaching results, which is not conducive to the training of qualified or even excellent business English talents in higher vocational colleges.
Second, the constraints of business English teaching in vocational colleges
1. Student factor
Most students in higher vocational colleges have a relatively weak English foundation, so it is difficult for them to learn English skills. In addition, business knowledge makes the course more specialized, so many students will downplay their interest in learning business English, especially those in five-year higher vocational colleges. To a great extent, it also depends on students' self-study and research, as well as a thorough understanding of business knowledge and related English expressions. If students lack independent and positive learning attitude and practical training opportunities, the difficulty of learning business English will increase.
2. Teacher factors
Many business English teachers are pure English teachers. Although they have a good English teaching level, they lack a systematic and in-depth grasp of business knowledge, or are limited to written understanding and lack of practical experience, which is not conducive to cultivating business English talents with practical operation ability. At the same time, some business English teachers' teaching methods can't meet the requirements of the times and students. They blindly adopt traditional teaching methods based on textbooks and outlines, lacking flexibility and innovation, which is not conducive to the cultivation of students' scientific learning methods.
Third, thinking about business English teaching practice in higher vocational colleges
In order to improve the efficiency of business English teaching, teachers should think more about how to help students build a knowledge system of business English in a limited time and stimulate students' initiative in learning. According to my teaching experience, I will discuss the selection of materials, teaching methods and the use of resources.
1. The material selection is novel, keeping up with the times and suitable for the characteristics of higher vocational students.
In teaching practice, we often find that some teaching examples are still business and trade examples adopted in 1970s and 1980s. Students often feel that these cases are far away from themselves, which will also affect students' enthusiasm for learning, so some teachers will find that students' response and cooperation in class are not ideal. In the process of preparing lessons, teachers may wish to make some choices, and can prepare some fashionable themes or themes closely combined with professional background. For example, when we talk about dumping and anti-dumping, according to the professional background of textile and garment in our college, we can choose the relevant cases in which China suffered from trade remedy measures in textile trade in 2004. On the one hand, we can arouse students' voices through the events around us, and pay close attention to the current situation faced by China textile industry with students, so as to increase background knowledge. At the same time, it can also explain to students what dumping, anti-dumping, green trade barriers and trade remedy measures are. China's entry into WTO has brought many new industries to China, such as online trade and online commerce. Students pay more attention to this aspect and have a comprehensive understanding. Blogs, e-books and other words are also very popular with students. Teachers can use this to carry out classroom teaching, enrich teaching content, encourage students to express their views and improve students' language expression ability.
In selecting materials, teachers should not only consider the novelty of selecting materials, but also consider the characteristics and training objectives of students. Students will learn business and trade knowledge through business English, so the consistency of material selection is also very important. Teachers can plan all the contents of business English learning into a set of business activities, and integrate learning objectives and learning priorities into business activities, which can not only complete teaching tasks, but also help students understand business activities systematically and deepen their knowledge.
2. According to the teaching content, use corresponding teaching methods to activate classroom teaching.
To some extent, students' learning attitude is closely related to teachers' teaching methods, so teachers should not only prepare teaching contents, but also prepare teaching methods. In the process of business English teaching, most teachers will adopt task-based teaching methods, such as case teaching method, cooperative learning method and discussion method. Case teaching method is especially suitable for business English reading teaching. It is difficult for students to understand simple concepts, but it is much easier to explain them with cases. Just like the dumping and anti-dumping mentioned above, we can first introduce a case of dumping and anti-dumping and explain its concept to students through their behavior, which will have a good effect. Then you can set questions for students to discuss according to the specific content of the case: ① the reasons for anti-dumping; (2) How to avoid the anti-dumping actions of other countries? Students can discuss, compare and summarize before returning to the text, so as to better understand the text.
Cooperative learning method can be applied to all business English teaching, and its core is mutual cooperation among students. Teachers are the dominant class and students are the main body. Teachers guide students to complete the corresponding teaching tasks. In this link, students are divided into groups, and according to the tasks assigned by the teacher, they can inquire about information, discuss with each other and finish together. Teachers tour between groups, give necessary guidance, or participate in discussions. Students can also set up dialogues to show in class, and teachers can summarize the evaluation. Under the correct guidance of teachers, cooperative learning method can provide students with an independent learning environment, give full play to their subjective initiative, so as to mobilize students' learning enthusiasm, enhance their self-confidence and create an environment for business English learning. It can not only improve students' business English ability, stimulate students' innovative thinking ability, but also cultivate students' team spirit.
Discussion teaching method can be based on cooperative learning method, which will put forward higher requirements for students' independent thinking, cooperative communication ability and comprehensive language ability. Students can make use of what they have learned in class, discuss relevant knowledge involved in books, boldly put forward ideas and constantly explore ideas. For example, in the above case, students can discuss the prospect of textile trade in China according to the new challenges faced by China textile trade at present. Teachers should fully grasp the classroom order, and students should actively discuss around the theme, so as to achieve the teaching purpose. Through exercise, students can cultivate their comprehensive ability, and lay a foundation for better integration into the work in the future. In addition, teachers should pay attention to the authenticity of the activity scene when setting up classroom activities, which can create an immersive simulation environment for students and is more conducive to the development of students' classroom activities. Teachers should pay attention not to interrupt students easily and make corrections in students' simulation, otherwise it will affect students' self-confidence and hinder the normal development of business communication. However, as students majoring in business English, teachers should ask students to understand relevant business culture, especially in international trade. Therefore, teachers can deliberately arrange trade exchanges between different countries in the activity setting, and ask students to pay attention to cross-cultural obstacles and give guidance in the actual simulation.
3. Make full use of various resources to ensure the smooth development of business English teaching.
Teachers can make full use of classroom multimedia resources and enhance classroom information. At the same time, through the Internet, teachers can capture the latest business-related information, expand students' horizons, fill some blind spots of students' knowledge, and students can easily integrate into classroom teaching. For example, when discussing with students that China's entry into WTO will bring great opportunities to China's economy, people pay more and more attention to the creative industries in the Internet industry. What is creative industry, what contents it contains, and the prospect of creative industry in China. We can show it to students through network resources and expand their knowledge. At the same time, teachers can continue to learn through various resources and improve their own knowledge structure. Teachers' limited business knowledge is also a restrictive factor affecting the cultivation of business English talents. Teachers should keep pace with the times and constantly improve themselves. We can make use of all kinds of resources of the college, such as going to the library and looking up relevant knowledge online, and clarify the knowledge system. You can also consult and discuss with teachers of other economic and trade majors. In addition, according to the talent training mode of higher vocational colleges, teachers should also have the corresponding practical ability to become a qualified business English teacher. Therefore, teachers should make full use of the relevant policies of the college to practice in enterprises, get in touch with business knowledge and understand the actual operation of business, so that teachers can better guide students and cultivate their practical operation ability in combination with reality in teaching.
Four. Concluding remarks
As a new international form of cultivating business English talents, business English teaching in higher vocational colleges must keep up with the times, international society and professional background, constantly explore new teaching methods, form unique teaching concepts and actively innovate, so as to cultivate compound talents with characteristics, high quality and social needs.
refer to
[1] sheets. On the application of task-based business English teaching method-a successful business English teaching activity. Archives .200623
[2] Liu Yun. Discussion on new ideas of business English teaching methods in higher vocational colleges. Network technology era.200716
[3] Hatch Insen, t&: A learning-centered approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 74
the second
Pragmatic Analysis of English Verbal Humor
Paper Keywords Speech Humor Pragmatic Presupposition Speech Act Theory Relevance Theory
The key to the effect of verbal humor lies in breaking through the conventional usage of language, which mainly depends on the abnormal use of deixis, pragmatic presupposition, speech act, relevance and pragmatic factors such as quality standard, quantity standard, relationship standard and mode standard.
"The so-called linguistic humor is the humor created through the variation and application of various elements of language." "The successful dynamic expression of linguistic humor in discourse stems from its unconventional language structure, that is, under the restriction of dialectical logic, it breaks through the general laws of linguistics, philology, lexicology, grammar and formal logic and uses language materials in different ways, thus producing words that cannot be understood literally. The key to the effectiveness of verbal humor is to break through the conventional usage of language. It is not enough to analyze verbal humor only from the perspective of rhetoric. This paper attempts to analyze English verbal humor from deixis, pragmatic presupposition, speech act theory, conversational implicature theory and relevance theory with the help of pragmatic theory.
Deixis and English Verbal Humor
Deixis includes personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adverbs. Their indicating objects should determine the meaning of words according to the time and place of use, the identities of speakers and listeners, and the objects and events in actual situations. Deixis in discourse is the key to understanding discourse. If deixis is not clear, discourse will be puzzling or even misleading. In verbal communication, the speaker must change the deixis appropriately according to the context. When the deixis should be changed, but the speaker fails to change it for some reason, it often leads to a sense of humor because of violating the convention. For example:
A boy wants to take a few more days off. He called the teacher, hoping that his voice would sound like his father's:
"I regret to tell you that Thomas is ill in bed and will not be able to go back to school for three or four days."
"Oh," said the teacher, "I'm sorry to hear that; Who is talking? "
"My father, sir."
In this humorous story, the little boy called the teacher for leave in the name of his father, but when the teacher asked who was calling, he did not change the personal demonstrative pronoun in time and still answered "my father", which produced a humorous effect, and the little boy's strategy was also seen through because of this instruction error.
It can be seen that although there are some similarities between grammatical pronouns and pragmatic deixis, pragmatic deixis is based on the speaker, and the listener should make corresponding changes when understanding the text.
Second, pragmatic presupposition and English humor
Presupposition is the premise of using sentences. When one sentence presupposes another, the second sentence must be true, whether the first sentence is true or not. For example, the premise that he will stop beating his wife is that he has beaten his wife before. "Contextual presupposition is pragmatic presupposition" refers to the conditions that must be met to effectively implement an illocutionary act through one sentence. Pragmatic presupposition has two characteristics: one is appropriateness, that is, presupposition should be closely combined with context, and presupposition is the premise of speech act; The second is * * * intellectuality, that is to say, pragmatic presupposition should be information that both speakers know. The speaker expresses himself through words, and I hear that people can understand. However, the loss of intellectuality when setting first will lead to communication failure and sometimes humor. For example:
One day, Brown was walking in the street with his wife and his big family. A policeman grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him.
"Wait," protested Brown. "What did I do?"
"Of course I don't know what you did," replied the policeman, "but I want to know why people follow you."
In this humor, the premise for the police to arrest Mr. Brown is that as a policeman, he should ask the bad guys; Mr. Brown was chased by a group of people again. He must be a bad guy. But this presupposition lacks intellectuality. Mr. Brown didn't know that the police regarded himself as a bad person, so this farce happened.
Speech Act Theory and English Verbal Humor
Speech act theory was first put forward by the British philosopher Austin, who first divided sentences into two categories: narrative sentences and performative sentences. A narrative sentence refers to a sentence that describes something, and a performance sentence refers to a sentence that carries out some kind of behavior. Later, he thought that his division was unscientific, and any speech act could include three kinds of acts: 1 speech act, that is, the act of saying something meaningful; Act, that is, the act of explaining the speaker's intention; Effective behavior, that is, the effect after speaking. It's cold here. This sentence needs to be said; The intention expressed is that the listener needs to take warm measures; As a result, the window was closed.
Searle revised and developed Austin's theory. Searle believes that speaking language is to complete a series of language activities, such as statements, commands, questions and so on. Could you pass the salt, for example? Not to ask the listener whether he has the ability to pass salt, but to ask the listener the ability to pass salt. He called the above speech acts indirect speech acts, that is, an act is implemented indirectly through words, so the speaker's discourse meaning is often inconsistent with the sentence meaning. Humor is sometimes caused by misunderstanding or incomprehension of speech acts. For example:
One morning, a London boy was sitting on the bus to school. He kept sniffing and making such a loud noise with his nose that everyone else in the car began to shake their heads.
Finally, an old man sitting next to him said, "Little boy, do you have a handkerchief?"
"Yes, I have a clean handkerchief in my pocket," said the boy, "but I can't give it to you." Mother said it was impolite to ask anyone for a handkerchief. You must own and use your own. "
The reason why this story makes people laugh is that the little boy misunderstood the words and actions of the old man. When the old man asked the little boy if he had a handkerchief, the little boy mistakenly thought that the old man wanted to borrow it from him. The speech act of the old man should be to let the little boy wipe his nose with a handkerchief, instead of sucking his nose to make a sound. Its effective behavior should be that the little boy stops sucking his nose. But because boys misunderstand behavior, there is no effective behavior.
Fourthly, the theory of conversational implicature and English verbal humor.
Grice believes that people's normal language communication is not a series of unrelated languages, and speakers cooperate with each other. Only by assuming that the speaker abides by a principle and strives to achieve the goal of the dialogue can the meaning of the dialogue be guided. He called this principle the principle that people abide by cooperation. The principle of cooperation is divided into four standards: quality standard, quantity standard, relationship standard and mode standard.
Conversational meaning can come from two aspects: observing and violating principles and norms, and correspondingly there are two conversational meanings: general conversational meaning and special conversational meaning. Humor is often a deliberate violation of principles.
1. Violation of quality standards and English humor
Flying car; Am I driving too fast?
States fly too slowly?
Of course, we know that the driver was stopped by the police because he was driving too fast, but the police with a sense of humor said that the driver was driving too slowly. He deliberately violated the quality standards and said something inconsistent with the incident, which not only showed that the driver was driving too fast, but also eased the tense atmosphere.
2. Violation of quantitative norms and English verbal humor
Aunt: How did Jimmy do in the history exam?
Not at all, but it's not his fault. Why did they ask him what happened before the poor boy was born?
Mom only needs to answer "she didn't do well in the exam", but she deliberately violated the quantitative standard and said more than necessary, which not only made things less serious, but also easily shirked the responsibility for Jamie.
3. The violation of relational norms and English humor
Customer: Waiter, there is a fly in the soup.
Attendant: OK, I'll get you a fork.
The waiter is very witty and humorous. Instead of being at a loss or going to the manager on duty as people thought, he answered a very irrelevant sentence: "I'll get a fork"-a fork can neither be used to fork flies nor drink soup, and a situation that might affect hotel business and other customers' appetite was reversed by this irrelevant sentence. It is conceivable that the customer's mood will be improved and things will be solved satisfactorily.
4. Violation of stylistic standards and English verbal humor
One day, a student went to see his teacher and asked, "Will you punish a boy for something he didn't do?"
The teacher said, "No, Tommy. I would never punish a boy for something he didn't do. But why do you ask? "
The boy replied, "I asked because I didn't do my homework."
Modal principle requires concise and orderly speech. However, the students deliberately came out of order. First, they asked the teacher if they would punish the students for what they didn't do, and then they said that they didn't do their homework. Moreover, it is not concise, instead of directly asking the teacher, "I didn't do my homework, will you punish me?" However, his deliberate violation of etiquette norms can bring good results. Even a strict teacher will not punish his students when he hears such questions.
Relevance Theory and English Verbal Humor
Sperber and others believe that "there is only one relevance principle in language communication, that is, the discourse itself has the characteristics of relevance". "If one sentence P and another sentence Q, together with background knowledge, can produce new information that cannot be produced by adding background knowledge alone, then P and Q are related." The principle of relevance is not important, but the degree of relevance. We usually think that the speaker and the listener adopt the maximum relevance criterion.
The smooth development of a communicative activity is based on the background knowledge of both parties, that is, "the basis of language communication is the cognitive environment of both parties." With this background knowledge or cognitive environment, the speaker may choose the appropriate speech form for the listener, and the listener can understand the speaker's speech behavior. This background knowledge includes people's impressions of the world, all kinds of old information and the assumptions arising from it. Due to different cognitive environments, people have different understandings of the same speech act. For example:
Bessie is a little girl. She is only five years old. She doesn't go to school. Of course, she doesn't know how to read and write. But her sister Mary is a girl student. She is ten years old.
One day, Mary saw her little sister sitting at the table with a pen in her hand and a big piece of paper in front of her.
What are you doing, Bessie? She said.
"I am writing a letter to my friend Kitty," said Essie.
"But how can you?" Her sister said, "You can't write."
"Well," said Bessie, "it doesn't matter, because Kitty can't read."
This kind of humor is based on two people's different cognitive environments. My sister went to school and thought that writing letters must be able to understand the contents of the letter, but my sister didn't go to school. She thinks her friend can't read, so it doesn't matter what she writes.