Reading Comprehension and Schema Theory.docx

Reading Comprehension and Schema Theory.docx

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ReadingComprehensionandSchemaTheory

天津工业大学毕业论文

论文题目

TheRelationshipBetweenEnglishReadingComprehensionandSchemaTheory

（申请文学学士学位）

院别：

外国语学院

专业：

英语

学生：

谢振峰

指导教师：

张怡

职称：

讲师

天津工业大学外国语学院

2012年6月

TheRelationshipBetweenEnglishReadingComprehensionandSchemaTheory

AThesisPresentedinPartialFulfillment

oftheRequirementsfor

theDegreeofBachelorofArts

XieZhenfeng

UndertheSupervisionof

ZhangYi

ForeignLanguagesCollege

TianjinPolytechnicUniversity

June2012

Contents

Acknowledgementsii

Abstractiii

摘要iv

Introduction1

Chapter1DefinitionOFTitleVariables2

1.1DefinitionofReadingComprehension2

1.2DefinitionofSchema2

1.3SchemaTheory3

Chapter2TheNatureandModelofReadingProcess4

2.1TheNatureofReadingProcess4

2.3TheModelofReadingProcess5

Chapter3OverviewoftheSchemaTheoryofReadingComprehension6

Chapter4AnalysisofContentSchemaandItsRoleinReadingComprehension7

Chapter5TheActivationofContentSchema10

Chapter6TheActivationofCulturalBackgroundKnowledge13

Conclusion14

WorksCited15

Appendix17

Acknowledgements

Atthepointoffinishingthispaper,I’dliketoexpressmysincerethankstoallthosewhohavelentmehandsinthecourseofmywritingthispaper.Firstofall,I'dliketotakethisopportunitytoshowmysinceregratitudetomysupervisor,TeacherZhang,whohasgivenmesomuchusefuladvicesonmywriting,andhastriedherbesttoimprovemypaper.Secondly,I’dliketoexpressmygratitudetomyclassmateswhoofferedmereferencesandinformationontime.Lastbutnottheleast,I’dliketothankthoseleaders,teachersandworkingstaffespeciallythoseintheSchoolofForeignLanguages.Withouttheirhelp,itwouldbemuchharderformetofinishmystudyandthispaper.

Abstract

Readersconstructmeaningfromcluesfoundinatextwhichisrelatedtotheuseofbackgroundknowledgeinunderstandingthecontentofthepassage.Readingisaninteractiveprocessinwhichreadersconstructameaningfulrepresentationoftextusingtheirschemata.Schematheorydescribestheprocessbywhichreaderscombinetheirownbackgroundknowledgewiththeinformationinatexttocomprehendthattext.Allreaderscarrydifferentschemata（backgroundinformation）.Readingtasksaredesignedtoactivatethelearners’schemata.

ThispapermainlyconcernshowschematheoryisappliedinEnglishasasecondlanguage（L2）reading.Byillustratingtheshema-theoreticviewofEnglishreading,thepaperuncoverstheschema'sconnectionto,aswellasitsapplicationin,bothEnglishreadingcomprehensionandinstructionintermsofthreeaspects:

1）theexpositionofschematheory,2）Thenatureandmodelofreadingprocess,3）thefunctionofschemata.

Keywords:

schemataschematheoryreadingcomprehension

摘要

图式是“先存知识”或“背景知识”，是人们存储于头脑中对世界的一般认识。

任何语篇或文本本身没有意义，而只是引导读者或听者，根据他们的图式知识来重新获取或构建文本意义，达到阅读理解的目的。

有关读者运用图式知识进行语言理解和文本解读的学说被称为图式理论。

本文在对图式和图式理论、英语阅读的本质与过程、图式的类型以及功能进行逐一探讨的同时，阐述了图式理论同英语阅读理解的关系，从而揭示了二者在提高学生阅读理解的过程中所起的积极促动作用。

关键词：

图式图式理论阅读理解

Introduction

Readingplaysavitalroleinsecondlanguageacquisition,whichisacknowledgedbymostprofessionals.Foralongtime,accordingtothe"bottom-upmodel",readingisastrictlyserialprocessfromthelowestunit,theletter,tothehighestunit,thepassage.Itconsidersthatreadingcomprehensionprimarilydependsonthedecodingofwordsandsentencesinordertoknowwhatthewriterwantstoconvey.That'stosay,inatext,ifthereadergetsoversuchbarriersasvocabularyandgrammar,hecancomprehendthetextwell.Masteringlinguisticknowledgeofphonetics,vocabularyandgrammarishelpfultodecodethewordsymbols.However,intheprocessofreading,manyChinesestudentsalreadypossesstheaboveknowledge,buttheystillcannotcomprehendthetextscompletely.Thereasonisthattheydonotactivatetheirschemata,especiallythecontentschema.

Thefirstgoalofthispaperistodefinethetermsreadingcomprehension,schema,schematheory.ThesecondgoalistoreviewthenatureofEnglishreadingprocess.Thethirdgoalistogiveabriefoverviewofsomeoftheliteraturethatdealswithschematheoryaspartofareadercenteredpsycholinguisticprocessingmodelforbothnativeandnonnativereaders.Thefourthgoalisrelatedtotheanalysisofcontentschemaanditsroleinreadingcomprehension.Thefifthgoalispertinenttotheactivationofcontentschema.Thelastgoalistodiscussthesituationofschematheoryinreadingcomprehension.

ThroughthispapertheauthorwantstocallontheEnglishlearnersmasterscientificreadingmethodssuchasdoingsomepre-readingactivitiesandattachmuchattentiontotheroleofcontentschemainreadingcomprehension.

Chapter1DefinitionOFTitleVariables

1.1DefinitionofReadingComprehension

Readingcomprehensionhasbeendefinedinmanywaysovertheyears.[7]suggeststhattheoverridingpurposetoreadingistogetthecorrectmessagefromatext–themessagethewriterintendedforthereadertoreceive.[3]statesthattheideaofreadinghaschangedandmovedfromwhatwasconsideredareceptiveprocesstowhatisnowaninteractiveprocess.Readingcanbedoneusinganumberofprocessesthatcanbedividedintotwomaincategories:

bottom-upprocessingandtop-downprocessing.Bottom-upprocessingreferstothereaderobtainingmeaningfromthelettersandwordsofatextandreconstructingtheintendedmessagethatway.Top-downprocessingreferstothereader’sabilitytolookatatextasawholeandtoconnectandrelateittohisexistingknowledgebase.Bothprocessesareneededtoobtainamessagefromatext.

1.2DefinitionofSchema

Backgroundknowledge–alsopriorknowledge–issupposedtoconsistoftwomaincomponents:

“ourassimilateddirectexperiencesoflifeanditsmanifoldactivities,andourassimilatedverbalexperiencesandencounters”[5].Schemataareacceptedasinterlockingmentalstructuresrepresentingreaders’knowledge[9]-[6]-[7]ofordinaryevents[6].Inthereadingprocess,readersintegratethenewinformationfromthetextintotheirpreexistingschemata[5].Notonlydoschematainfluencehowtheyrecognizeinformation,butalsohowtheystoreit.Accordingto[7],onlyaftertheschemaisactivatedisoneabletoseeorhear,becauseitfitsintopatternsthatshealreadyknows.Thenotionofschemaisrelatedwiththeorganizationofinformationinthelong-termmemorythatcognitiveconstructsallow.Schemataisthepluralformthatrefersanindividual’sbackgroundknowledge.Aschemaisthesingularformthatreferstoone“chunk”ofknowledge.Aschemaismadeupofsubordinatepartscallednodes.[8]explainthebasicprocessesofreadingcomprehensionanddevelopthenotionofschemaanditsrelationtolanguagereading.AndersonandPearsonmaintainthat“areader’sschemata,orknowledgealreadystoredinmemory,functionintheprocessofinterpretingnewinformationandallowingittoenterandbecomeapartoftheknowledgestore（p.255）.”Theystatedthat“aschemaisanabstractknowledgestructure”andthatit“isstructuredinthesensethatitrepresentsrelationshipsamongitscomponentparts（p.259）.”

1.3SchemaTheory

Schematheorydealswiththereadingprocess,wherereadersareexpectedtocombinetheirpreviousexperienceswiththetexttheyarereading.Sinceeachreaderhasdifferentbackgroundknowledge,itisculturespecific.SchematheorywasdevelopedbythegestaltpsychologistBartlett“...whoobservedhowpeople,whenaskedtorepeatastoryfrommemory,filledindetailswhichdidnotoccurintheoriginalbutconformedtotheirculturalnorms”[10].[2]formalizetheroleofbackgroundknowledgeinlanguagecomprehensionasschematheory,andclaimthatanytexteitherspokenorwrittendoesnotitselfcarrymeaning.[1]claimthat“atextonlyprovidesdirectionsforreadersastohowtheyshouldretrieveorconstructmeaningfromtheirown,previouslyacquiredknowledge.”Theveryimportantroleofbackgroundknowledgeonreadingcomprehensionisnotedby[7]thatareader’scomprehensiondependsonherabilitytorelatetheinformationthatshegetsfromthetextwithherpre-existingbackgroundknowledge.

Chapter2TheNatureandModelofReadingProcess

Readingisnotapassiveandmechanicalprocessbutaintricate,activeanddynamicpsychologicalprocess.Readingisalsoaprocessinwhichthereaderutilizeswhathavelearnedtoprocessthereadingmaterials.

2.1TheNatureofReadingProcess

FReadingisregardedasamajorsourceofcomprehensibleinputandastheskillthatmanyseriouslearnersmostneedtoemploy[3].[6]concluded:

1）Ourunderstandingofreadingisbestconsideredasaninteractiveprocessthattakesplacebetweenthereaderandthetext.Thebasicconceptisthatthereaderreconstructsthetextinformationbasedinpartontheknowledgedrawnfromthetextandinpartfromthepriorknowledgeavailabletothereader.

2）Readingasaninteractiveprocessreferstotheinteractionofmanycomponentskillspotentiallyinsimultaneousoperation;theinteractionofthesecognitiveskillsleadstofluentreadingcomprehension.Simplystated,readinginvolvesbothanarrayoflower-levelrapid,automaticidentificationskillsandanarrayofhigher-levelcomprehensionorinterpretationskills.[4]PointedoutthatL2readinghasoftenbeenaccusedofbeingaslavishimitationofthefirstlanguagereadingresearch.ThesecondlanguagereadingProcesshasreliedprimarilyuponexplanatorymodelsborrowedfromfirstlanguageresearch.Bernhardtassertedthatinthisprocessthereadercanbeinvolvedintheconstructionofmeaningfromatext,basedpartlyonnewinformationpre