Politeness and Power in Teacher Talk: Vietnamese EFL Teachers Reflect on Classroom Language

In Vietnamese EFL classrooms, where hierarchy, harmony, and emotional restraint shape the norms of interaction, the act of speaking is rarely neutral. This study explores how secondary school English teachers reflect on their own classroom talk, particularly in moments where tone, word choice, or timing carried consequences beyond the surface of instruction. Drawing on a corpus of written reflections composed during a professional development program, the study uses a narrative thematic approach to examine how teachers describe their use of politeness, indirectness, and mitigation as part of their relational practice. Findings reveal that teachers navigate a complex affective landscape in which every utterance is weighed, not only for instructional clarity, but for its potential to preserve face, protect learner confidence, and sustain classroom rapport. While the strategies they describe echo familiar theories of politeness and facework, their reflections emphasize emotional impact over theoretical constructs. Language is remembered not by structure, but by feeling, whether it healed, harmed, or held the space between teacher and learner. The study highlights the need to treat classroom discourse as ethically loaded and culturally situated, suggesting that language in education is not only a vehicle for learning, but a daily act of relational care.

کلیدواژه ها:

classroom discourse ، facework ، politeness strategies ، reflective practice ، teacher talk