“Oops! I can’t express this in English!”: managing epistemic challenges by Chinese EFL peer tutors in writing tutorials

IF 0.8 3区 文学 Q3 COMMUNICATION
Text & Talk Pub Date : 2022-04-07 DOI:10.1515/text-2020-0139
Fenghua Chen, Xueyu Wang
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract This study focuses on Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) peer tutors’ discursive behavior to manage epistemic challenges in writing tutorials at a local university in China’s Mainland. Based on approximately 24 h of audio-recorded interactions involving eight tutorial groups over six weeks, we searched different types of epistemic challenges to Chinese EFL peer tutors and explored how they managed them discursively. Our findings, in adopting a CA (Conversational Analysis) approach, show that Chinese EFL peer tutors mainly experience two types of epistemic challenges – the language proficiency-based challenges and the resistance-based challenges. They construct different identities to cope with these challenges – EFL learners, careless but competent tutors, and authoritative and trustworthy experts. These practices are realized through valuable pragma-linguistic devices, including advising and assessing speech acts, deontic modality, self-mocking expressions, imperative and assertive tones, narrative discourse, and smiley voice and laughter. These findings highlight the need for writing center instructors to follow tutor training guides suitable for EFL peer tutors instead of following a universal training recipe.
“哎呀!我不能用英语表达这一点!”:中国EFL同伴导师在写作教程中应对认知挑战
摘要本研究主要关注中国大陆一所地方大学的英语作为外语(EFL)同伴导师在撰写辅导课时应对认知挑战的话语行为。基于6周内8个辅导小组约24小时的录音互动,我们搜索了中国英语同伴导师面临的不同类型的认知挑战,并探讨了他们如何以语篇方式应对这些挑战。本研究采用会话分析方法发现,中国英语同伴导师主要面临两种类型的认知挑战——基于语言熟练度的挑战和基于阻力的挑战。他们构建了不同的身份来应对这些挑战——英语学习者,粗心但能干的教师,权威而值得信赖的专家。这些实践是通过有价值的语用语言手段来实现的,包括建议和评估言语行为、道义情态、自嘲表情、命令和自信的语气、叙事话语、微笑的声音和笑声。这些发现强调了写作中心教师需要遵循适合英语同伴导师的导师培训指南,而不是遵循通用的培训配方。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Text & Talk
Text & Talk Multiple-
CiteScore
1.70
自引率
16.70%
发文量
70
期刊介绍: Text & Talk (founded as TEXT in 1981) is an internationally recognized forum for interdisciplinary research in language, discourse, and communication studies, focusing, among other things, on the situational and historical nature of text/talk production; the cognitive and sociocultural processes of language practice/action; and participant-based structures of meaning negotiation and multimodal alignment. Text & Talk encourages critical debates on these and other relevant issues, spanning not only the theoretical and methodological dimensions of discourse but also their practical and socially relevant outcomes.
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