Language is a tool for human communication. It expresses wishes and thoughts through language, and it carries the mission of inheriting culture and rectifying people's hearts. Therefore, language is an important part of human activities. Language reflects the individual's thinking mood, embodies the individual's comprehensive quality and highlights the individual's basic characteristics, which is very important in the history of social development. It can be said that the whole history of human development is the evolutionary history of language development. The ability and quality of language has always been the main concern of human beings. "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first." The "thing" here is education, so the "tool" here is the language of education. As teachers, we must deeply understand the function of language, fully understand the meaning and types of teacher language, and realize education and teaching with excellent teacher language.
I. Language and teacher language
(1) language
Essence refers to "the fundamental attribute inherent in things that determines their nature, appearance and development". Visible essence is the reflection of the whole picture of things. As a teacher, understanding the essence of language is very beneficial to teachers' teaching and speaking.
Different times and different schools have given different explanations. Chomsky believes that language is the external expression of psychological state and a part of cognitive psychology. People's psychological activities depend on the material structure of the human brain, so language is a material phenomenon as well as a natural phenomenon. American scholar D. hymes believes that language is a social phenomenon, and the study of language must be related to its social function. Their research tends to explain that language is a unique symbol system of human beings from a cognitive perspective. In fact, the meaning of language is very extensive. For example, the Dictionary of Words explains language as follows: "Language is the most important communication tool for human beings. It is closely related to thinking, is a tool of thinking, is a direct embodiment of thinking, and is one of the essential characteristics that distinguish people from other animals. Language is a system with phonetics as its material shell, vocabulary as its building material and grammar as its structural law. Language is a special social phenomenon, which develops with the emergence of society and serves all social classes equally. "
Language can be divided into narrow sense and broad sense. Language in a narrow sense is a set of symbol system consisting of grammar and vocabulary, which takes pronunciation as the material shell, including spoken language, written language and characters recording written language. Language in a broad sense is a symbol system as a tool of social communication. It includes not only oral language, but also physical language, body language, space-time language and so on.
Due to the need of communication, the ancients used "stones" and "ropes" to take notes and communicate with each other. With the development of human beings, the language based on words and sounds has become the tool of people's communication and the focus of research, which is usually called narrow language. In addition, the study of narrow language is the most advanced form. However, people's understanding of narrow language is somewhat biased: first, language is limited to the category of people, and only people have language; The second is to understand language only as a synthesis of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Third, audio language is the main medium, and writing is the media.
With the deepening of language research, people have returned to the understanding that language is a communication tool, so new concepts such as object language, body language and space-time language have appeared. In the process of language research, the first is the object language, and then the body language. Body language is more flexible than object language, and both sides can communicate directly face to face, which will show some roughness, but it is better than object language.
Second, the types and functions of teachers' language
(A) the type of teacher language
1. Teaching working language and education management working language can be divided into teaching working language and education management working language according to the nature and content of teachers' work.
Teaching working language is the language used by teachers to carry out various teaching activities. The main form of expression is classroom teaching language. As a professional working language, the distinctive feature of classroom teaching language is the certainty of expression content. Teachers should understand what to talk about, where to talk about it, to whom to talk about it, what kind of teaching effect they expect to achieve in the future, and what kind of goals they will eventually achieve. The working language of education management is put forward relative to "teaching work", which mainly refers to the language used by teachers in moral education and teaching management. It takes nearly twenty years for a person to graduate from primary school to university. During this period, people's world outlook, values and outlook on life germinated, developed and gradually formed. Therefore, teachers should make full use of the guiding function of language to make every student grow up healthily. Teachers are the organizers and hosts of teaching activities, and they are inevitably engaged in some teaching management work, such as organizing classroom teaching, guiding subject competitions, holding interest groups, and carrying out various outdoor practice activities. In the process of completing these tasks, teachers should be patient, orderly, set an example and insist on preaching. The common types of educational management language are propaganda and explanation, encouragement and call, instruction and request, summary and comment, criticism and praise, etc.
2. Sound language and silent language
According to the existence of sound, teachers' language can be divided into two kinds: vocal language and silent language. Spoken language is an oral language with speech as the signal. From this point of view, language can be analyzed into three parts: pronunciation, vocabulary and vocabulary, which are mainly reflected in teachers' oral English;
Silent language includes written language with characters as signals and quasi-language as oral auxiliary means. "Quasi-language", also called auxiliary language, is a quasi-language that assists all means of human feelings (emotions) except narrow language. Artistic quasi-languages such as music language and painting language, as well as accompanying quasi-languages such as body language and demonstration language, experienced teachers will exert a subtle influence on education and teaching through these silent languages.
Audio language is the most perfect form of human language and the inevitable product of human development to a specific stage. However, people can't have spoken English from the beginning. Silent language such as body language (action language) is the earliest language form for human beings to communicate and express their thoughts and feelings. In addition to body language, people also use silent language forms such as object language to express specific meanings.
Silent language has many defects and is a low-level language form limited by many factors. Audio language breaks the limitation of silent language and is an advanced language form. With the appearance of characters, spoken language to silent language can be divided into three categories: physical language (blackboard writing, physical objects, teaching molds), body language (movements, postures) and space-time language (distance, time interval). The body language in the base is also called action language, body language and so on. Some people refer to these three categories as languages.
3. Teachers' spoken and written language
Teachers' language can be divided into oral language (teachers' spoken language) and written language (teachers' written language) in terms of its material manifestations. Spoken language is an intangible language in phonetic form, while written language is a tangible language in concrete word form. They complement each other and coexist in the teaching (lecture) process. Teachers should make good use of these two languages, so that they can speak clearly, put pen to paper, and master this language as an expert in a certain profession.
(1) Teachers' oral English. Teachers' oral English is the most widely used working language in teachers' career, and it is also the fastest and most convenient education and teaching tool. Since its birth, spoken English has been shouldering the heavy responsibility of imparting knowledge and skills to the next generation. Even with the widespread use of written language and the increasing popularity of multimedia teaching, the flexibility and convenience of spoken language are still incomparable to other languages. Teachers can express extremely rich and complicated thoughts and feelings with the help of subtle differences in pronunciation, such as the severity of pronunciation, the speed of speech and the speed of intonation, so as to achieve educational results. Teachers can use the timeliness of oral English to detect the influence of oral English on students, get feedback information according to students' expressions, and adjust the use of oral English in time. Reading aloud is a way of teachers' oral English, which plays an important role in teachers' oral English teaching. Teachers' reading aloud is essential in the teaching of various subjects, especially in Chinese teaching and English teaching, which will directly affect the teaching effect. Good reading can develop students' intelligence, stimulate their interest in learning, let them appreciate the beauty of language, improve their listening, distinguishing and pronunciation abilities and improve their language literacy.
(2) Teachers' written language. Written language, like spoken language, is used to communicate and transmit information and is an important part of teachers' language. The basic characteristics of teachers' written language are standardization, neatness and beauty. The Chinese characters used in teachers' written language are standardized Chinese characters and Chinese Pinyin, that is, 1986' s Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters and 1988' s Basic Rules for Orthography of Chinese Pinyin, which record all kinds of written characters in the teaching process. At the same time, we should use standardized punctuation marks, numerical symbols, charts and other symbols for teaching. The symbols in teachers' written language should be clear enough, and there should be enough discrimination between symbols. Neat writing symbols will enable students to accept the information transmitted by teachers' language accurately and quickly. For young students, teachers should use regular script or a running script close to regular script; For older students, some running grass can be used appropriately. Even the teacher's cursive script should be based on the premise of ensuring the clarity of the font, and should not be unrestrained. In the course of lectures, participants should be cautious about their blackboard writing. If the font is slightly poor, you can try to avoid writing more blackboard writing. Those with good writing skills can write appropriately, but they should grasp the scale and try to leave a good impression on the interviewer. Teachers' written language emphasizes beautiful and neat writing. Especially on the blackboard, if a line of words is crooked, no matter who sees it, it is uncomfortable. In the process of writing, we should pay attention to the size difference between titles and arrange the writing surface reasonably. In modern multimedia teaching, the content of the text has increased rather than decreased, and it has various forms. Therefore, teachers should pay special attention to beauty and clarity when using computers for text input, font design and text typesetting. (B) the function of teachers' language
1. The service function of teacher language
Since the appearance of language, it has served human communication as a tool of thinking and expression. The appearance of language not only meets the needs of frequent communication, but also makes human life more organized, organized and structured. People endow some things with "names" through language, which enhances the communication between people and improves labor efficiency. Language gives life, labor and life a specific meaning, which provides great convenience for people's daily life. Teachers' language serves teaching. If the teacher's language is not accepted by students, it will even make students feel disgusted or resistant. Even if the form is beautiful, the pronunciation is standard, and the words are gorgeous, it will not play an educational role and achieve educational purposes. Therefore, if teachers want to make students feel happy and easy to accept, they must work hard on acceptability, try to unify education and acceptability, give full play to teachers' words to accurately convey information, and achieve the best results, so that teachers' words can better serve education and teaching.
2. The social promotion function of teachers' language
Language is an important condition for the survival and development of human society. It has a positive or negative impact on social development by spreading culture. For example, Qin Shihuang unified the six languages, promoted the communication between people and greatly promoted the development of social productive forces. Modern "vernacular movement", "Chinese pinyin scheme" and "simplification of Chinese characters" all happened because of the needs of the times, which promoted the development of society. It is also an inevitable trend of social development for teachers to popularize Putonghua.
3. Normative function of teachers' language
Teachers should use standard or relative standard Putonghua when facing the educated. Language norms are conducive to the transmission of information, because language is fleeting, especially oral teaching directly affects students' enthusiasm for accepting new knowledge and mobilizes students' thinking. Therefore, the standard degree of teachers' speech has the most direct influence on the teaching effect. Normality is manifested in the standardization of pronunciation, the standardization of words and expressions and the appropriateness of pragmatics. Whether it's reasoning, describing lyricism, expounding arguments, or expressing aspirations through things, we must be accurate in pronunciation, appropriate in words, clear in organization and appropriate in expression. Due to the limitation of time and space, teachers' language, especially oral teaching, should avoid verbosity and verbosity, and try to be standardized and concise. On the basis of standardization, teachers should also pay attention to the use of civilized terms. Teachers' duty is to teach and educate people. Therefore, teachers should prohibit the use of foul language, put an end to the use of insulting words, and avoid forming bad language expression habits. Try to keep civilized behavior consistent with civilized speech, and truly let the educated feel the aesthetic connotation of speech.
4. The cultural function of teachers' language
Since language entered people's daily life, it did not exist as a simple communication tool, but was more or less branded with personal psychology. Language not only helps people understand and transform the world, but also incorporates some specific attitudes and emotional experiences in specific forms, such as the justice and values of some national spirits. When people master their mother tongue, they also accept the meaning and value of culture. It can be said that language learning and application is also an important form and construction means of human society and culture.
Third, the teacher's professional language-Mandarin
Teachers are a special kind of mental workers. They are like a knowledge transfer station. Teachers store what they have learned from books and society in their brains. Teachers extract, process and sort out the stored knowledge according to the needs of education and teaching, and then pass it on to students step by step in a planned way. Teachers are engaged in this kind of special work, which determines that they must use language as a professional tool to perform their duties and complete their mission. For example, in the process of "teaching", review old lessons, guide people to new lessons, explain key and difficult points, ask questions, answer questions, and assign homework. Which teaching link can be separated from Chinese? In the process of "preaching" of ideological and moral education, which working methods can be separated from language, such as reporting, calling, encouraging, praising, urging, persuading and criticizing? It is no exaggeration to say that without language, the teaching profession will lose its foundation of existence. Some people say that teachers are "lip service", which is a bit vulgar, but it vividly points out the main characteristics of teachers' profession.
In the cultivation of students' good moral character, the exemplary role of teachers is undoubtedly very important. The teacher's exemplary behavior is a silent mobilization order, and example is better than words. However, as far as the overall responsibility of teachers is concerned, we must say that teachers' words and deeds are more important than their role models. This is true not only in the teaching of scientific and cultural knowledge, but also in the cultivation of good ideology and morality. Some beautiful virtues, such as caring for others, solidarity, keeping promises, being polite, etc. Teachers can influence and guide students with their own behaviors. However, some behaviors, such as sacrificing oneself to save others, being brave and selfless, are difficult for most teachers to meet and do. Admiration and praise of these noble virtues cannot but depend on language. Even those truths that can be taught by examples, teachers should explain them in language, let students know what to do, how to do it and why to do it, and turn the simple imitation of teachers' personal advanced behavior into rational conscious behavior. Just like a tailor's scissors ruler and a carpenter's axe saw, language is also an indispensable professional tool for teachers to perform their duties.
Establishing Putonghua as the professional language of teachers means that teachers must use Putonghua in all their activities. Not only Chinese teachers should use Mandarin, but also math, physics, sound and beauty teachers should use Mandarin. Teachers from kindergarten to colleges and universities should use Mandarin. At present, the state actively takes various measures to promote the improvement of teachers' Putonghua proficiency, such as linking whether the Putonghua proficiency test reaches the standard with whether normal students can graduate, with the promotion of teachers' professional titles, and with whether they can engage in the teaching profession, and so on. In order to respond to the call of the government, the majority of teachers regard speaking Mandarin well as a basic ability of teachers, turn using Mandarin into their own conscious action, and take speaking standard and fluent Mandarin as their pursuit goal. At present, teachers' Putonghua level is far higher than the average level of various industries. We can see that under the teacher's demonstration, from an early age, Putonghua will be popularized by the whole people in the future.