Abstract

Listening is an important skill for language interactions; and it is also an indispensable medium for inputting in learning foreign languages. However, it is not easy to achieve the adequate understanding of speaker’s intentions. Those are indirect speech acts, which focus on the illocutionary forces of utterances. Listening comprehension teaching is often neglected in traditional high school English teaching and students usually feel difficult in inferring the intended meaning of indirect speech in listening. Therefore, the analytical study of the application of indirect speech acts theory for teaching English listening in senior high school is necessary and instructively meaningful. This paper attempts to study the indirect speech acts theory and listening comprehension systematically and think that the indirect speech act theory can be applied to listening comprehension to help the learners interpret the speaker’s intended meaning. Finally, by analyzing some related data, the paper concludes and gives some suggestions on how to apply the indirect speech acts theory to English listening comprehension teaching in order to help the learners improve their listening comprehension ability and the level of English listening teaching.

Keywords: indirect speech acts theory; English listening comprehension; senior high school listening teaching

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Research background and purpose-1

1.2 Research questions-2

2. Literature review-3

2.1 Literature review of listening comprehension-3

2.1.1 Definition of listening comprehension-3

2.1.2 Nature of listening comprehension-3

2.1.3 Process of listening comprehension-3

2.2 Theoretical discussion on indirect speech acts theory-4

2.2.1 Definition of indirect speech acts-4

2.2.2 The classification of indirect speech acts theory-6

2.2.3 The characteristics of indirect speech acts theory-8

2.2.4 Relationship between indirect speech acts theory and listening comprehension-8

2.2.5 Summary-9

3. Method-10

3.1 Participants-10

3.2 Instruments-10

3.3 Procedures of date collection-10

4. Date analysis-11

4.1 Analysis of questionnaires-11

4.2 Analysis of two tests-16

4.2.1 Analysis of Pre-test-16

4.2.2 Analysis of Post-test-17

5. Conclusion-18

5.1 Findings-18

5.2 Suggestions on infiltrating indirect speech acts theory into listening comprehension teaching-18

5.3 Limitations and further research suggestions-19

References-20

Appendix Ⅰ-21

Appendix Ⅱ-23

Appendix Ⅲ-26