Communication Challenges Between Teachers and Learners Based on Linguistic Resolution Features. A Case Study of Bahati Sub County, Nakuru.

Abstract

Communication is the passing of information between interlocutors and receiving of feedback from contexts such as the one under study in secondary schools in Bahati subcounty. Interlocutors are participants in a discussion or a conversation; in this study these were teachers and students. Feedback in this context refers to response, rejoinder or retort that the decoder of the message gives in the course of communication. This study aimed to identify the communication challenges between form one learners and teachers in a school set up in Bahati Sub-County. The study identified politeness markers used in student-teacher oral communication based on the three categories of politeness markers; modal markers, lexical content of politeness and sentence typology reflecting politeness. Instances when different politeness markers were used in oral communication in school and the main illocutionary act commonly used by the study population were also identified. The study methodology involved learners and teachers filling a questionnaire that included both open and close ended questions. Quantitative data was compiled in an excel spread sheet® for analysis. Qualitative data was analysed and interpreted appropriately. This study reports that, please was the most used lexical politeness marker, kindly and excuse me were also extensively used. The participants used the imposing modals more than any other kind. Based on Leech‟s politeness maxims and scales the study found that most interlocutors were less polite. The illocutionary act commonly used by the study participants is the directive, which imposes on the hearer and thus considered impolite, this leads to hitches in communication thus affecting the quality of conversation between the learner and the teacher making it hard to achieve communication goals. The participants were more polite when addressing their seniors and when seeking assistance but less polite when addressing colleagues or when the information was not beneficial to them.