文化背景知识对英语阅读理解的影响及教学对策毕业设计.docx

文化背景知识对英语阅读理解的影响及教学对策毕业设计.docx

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文化背景知识对英语阅读理解的影响及教学对策毕业设计

分类号

密级

编号

本科生毕业论文

题目文化背景知识对英语阅读

理解的影响及教学对策

学院外国语学院

专业英语

作者姓名高春艳

班级05级六班

指导教师毛红梅

提交日期2009.5.20

TheInfluenceofCulturalBackgroundKnowledgeonEnglishReadingComprehensionandtheRelevantTeachingStrategies

GaoChunyan

Athesis

submittedtotheSchoolofForeignLanguagesandLiteratureTianshuiNormalUniversityinpartialfulfillmentoftherequirementforthedegree

of

BACHELOROFARTS

in

ENGLISHLANGUAGE

Tianshui,Gansu

May,2009

TheInfluenceofCulturalBackgroundKnowledgeonEnglishReadingComprehensionandtheRelevantTeachingStrategies

GaoChunyan

Abstract:

LackofthebackgroundknowledgeisfrequentlythemajorcauseofmanyChineseEFLstudents’poorreadingcomprehension.Therefore,itisofgreatimportancetolearnsomebackgroundknowledgebeforesomethingisread.Inreadingclass,itisveryimportanttomakestudentsknowthehistory,cultureconventionsandcustomsofEnglishcountries,whichcanwidenstudents’knowledgeandchangetheknowledgeintotheabilityofcommunication.Teachersshouldintroducethebackgroundknowledgeinreadingclass.Thispaper,basedonrecentresearchfindingsandexamples,discussesthecloserelationshipbetweenbackgroundknowledgeandreadingcomprehension,illustratestheinfluencingfactorsofbackground,suchasidiom,literatureandsocialcustoms,onstudents’comprehension,andproposesways,suchasclassdiscussion,comparisonbetweennativeandforeignbackgroundandvideoandslideshow,tohelpstudentsdevelopbackgroundknowledge.

Keywords:

readingcomprehension;backgroundknowledge;influence;strategies

文化背景知识对英语阅读理解的影响及教学对策

高春艳

【摘要】对文化背景知识的匮乏是造成中国英语学习者阅读困难的主要原因，因此，在阅读之前了解必要的文化背景知识是十分重要的，阅读教学中，使学生熟悉所学语言国家的历史、文化传统和风俗习惯等对拓宽教学内容，开阔学生眼界，使所学知识转化为交际能力，有着不可估量的作用。

教师应注重向学生介绍文化背景知识，探索如何在外语课堂上有效地融入文化教学。

基于近年来前人的研究成果，本文将讨论背景知识和阅读理解之间的密切关系,阐述背景知识对学生阅读的影响，比如习语、文学知识、社会生活等方面的文化知识对阅读理解的影响旨在提出一些教学对策,比如,课堂讨论、对比中西文化、利用多媒体等帮助学生提高文化背景知识,以提高学生的英语阅读能力。

【关键词】阅读理解；背景知识；影响；对策

CONTENTS

I.Introduction1

II.InfluencingFactorsofCulturalBackgroundKnowledgeonEnglishReadingComprehension2

2.1Idiom2

2.2Literature3

2.3SocialCustoms3

2.4SocialLives4

2.5AllusionsandHistory5

2.5.1Allusions5

2.5.2History6

2.6GeographyEnvironment6

III.SuggestedTeachingStrategiesofImprovingReadingTeachingthroughBackgroundKnowledge7

3.1TeachingStrategies8

3.1.1ClassDiscussion8

3.1.2WritingandPresentingPersonalExperiences8

3.1.3ComparisonbetweenNativeandForeignBackground9

3.1.4VideoandSlideShow9

3.1.5UseofTrue-or-FalseorMultiple-ChoiceExercises9

3.1.6GuessingandInferring9

3.1.7WidelyReading10

3.2ModelsofClassroomPractices10

IV.Conclusion11

References12

Acknowledgements13

.Introduction

Astheinternationalcommunicationandcooperationincreasing,Englishisbecomingmoreandmoreimportantinmodernsociety.Itbecomesamainwaytoacquireadvancedcultureandscientifictechnology.LearningEnglishhasneverbeenofmoreimportanceinoursocietythantoday.However,readingisoftenconsideredthemostdifficultintermsofliteracy,accuracy,andefficiency.Generallyspeaking,improvingreadingskillsrequiresmoretimeoftrainingthanimprovinglisteningorspeaking.WhatfactorsaffectthereadingcomprehensionofEFLlearners?

Theabilitytoreadisacknowledgedbythemoststableanddurableofthesecondlanguagemodalities（Bernhardt,1991）.Inotherwords,readingplaysavitalroleinsecondlanguageacquisition.Foralongtime,readingwastraditionallyviewedasabottom-upprocessinaword-sentence-passagesequence,inwhichreadersdecodethetextandrebuiltwhatthewriterwantstoconvey.Accordingly,readingteachingbecomesteachingofpointsknownasgrammarandvocabulary.Whenstudentshaveproblemsincomprehendingthetext,theyaretoldthattheyfailbecauseoftheirpoorgrammarorlimitedvocabulary.Consequently,peoplearemisledtobelievethattheonlyapproachofaneffectivereadingisenlargingvocabularyandmasteringgrammaticalrules.Actuallyitisnotso.

Duringthelatestfortyyears,researchersofforeignlanguagereadingshowtheirdoubttowardstraditionalviewonreadingandreadingteaching.Goady（1997）thinksthattheprocessbetweenlanguageandthinkingreferredtothreeelements:

Conceptualability,backgroundknowledgeandprocessstrategies.SomeotherresearcherssuchasAdams（1982）,Hudson（1982）andWilson（1986）alsodidresearchesontheimportanceofbackgroundknowledgeinreadingprocess.InChina,Tan（1997）thinksthatreadingcomprehensionisacomplicatedpsycholinguisticprocess.Anation’slanguageisinfiltratingitsnativeculture.TheshortageofunderstandingofthenativeEnglishcultureisthekeydifficultyinEnglishreadingcomprehension.Qiu（2004）pointsoutthatthemorethelearnersknowthebackgroundknowledgeofforeignlanguagecountries,theeasiertheycommunicatewithforeigners.Yang（1995）,Lai（1998）,Hu（1999）haveundergonethesameexplorationandstudytoaidtheirL2teachingpractice.

Basedonthesestudies,thispaperdiscussestherelationshipbetweenreadingcomprehensionandbackgroundknowledgeandthendiscusseshowbackgroundknowledgeaffectsreadingcomprehension.Finallyitprovidessomeeffectivemethodstointroducebackgroundknowledgeinreadingteaching,withitsaimatimprovingreadinginananti-traditionalway.

.InfluencingFactorsofCulturalBackgroundKnowledgeonEnglishReadingComprehension

TransformationalGenerativeTheory（Chomsky）assertsthatreadingcomprehensionbeginsatthesmallestandsimplestlanguageunitsandeachsingleword,sentenceandpassagecarriesitsownmeaningindependentlywhichhasnodirectlinkwiththereader.Ashavebeennotedintheintroductionofthisthesis,readingissimplydecoding.Whendecodingends,readingcomprehensionisrealized.Inthatcase,ifcomprehensiondoesnotgoonsuccessfully,itisthereadingmaterialthatcausestheproblemgrammaticallyorlexically.Thistheoryhighlightstheinfluencecausedbylanguagestructuremorethanthereader'sowninfluence.Therecentresearchesindicatethatreadingcomprehensionisneithersimplyaunidirectionalinformation-receivingactivitynoracomprehensionofwords,sentences,andtexts.Readersconstructacertainmodeinthereadingprocess,acomprehension-aimedandinteractiveprocessthatrequiresconsistentinferringandguessing.Aninteractiveprocessmeansthatatextaffectsreadersthroughitswords,content,andstructurewhereasreadersapplytheirbackgroundknowledgetoactonthetext.Backgroundcontainsmanyaspects（Zhang,2005）.

2.1Idiom

Idiomisanimportantpartofthelanguageandcultureofasociety.Itisoftenhardtounderstandandhardtouseidiomscorrectly.Itisalmostimpossibletounderstandidiomsfromthemeaningsoftheindividualwords.AndwithEnglishidioms,eventhesamewordsmayhavedifferentmeanings.Forexample:

“So,firstofall,astudentshouldlearnnottolookdownonsuchidiomsjustbecausethey’remadeupofsuchsimpleandeasywords.Heshouldlookoutforidenticalphraseswithdifferentmeaningsandlookthemupinadictionaryifhe’snotsure.He’sboundtorunintoalotoftroublewhenhefirstusesthem,butheshouldn’tgivein,muchlessgiveup.Ifhekeepstryingandkeepsatitlongenoughhe'llmakeoutandthingswillturnoutwellintheend”（ZhangandCui,2001）.

Thoughthepassageisshort,itincludestenidioms:

lookdown,madeupof,lookoutfor,lookup,runinto,givein,giveup,keepatit,makeoutandturnout（well）.

2.2Literature

Manywritersusuallyquotedliteraturesuchasfamousexpertsandtheirwritings,folkliteratureandallegoryetc..

Example:

InJaneEyre,whenJaneEyrehelpedfirstlyMr.Rochesterputoutthefireofhishouse,herevealedhislovetoherunintentionally.HesaidtoJaneEyre:

“IthoughtsometimesIsawbeyonditswildwatersashore,sweetasthehillsofBealah;andnowandthenafresheninggale,wakenedbyhope,boremyspirittriumphantlytowardsthebourne”（Charlotte,2002）.

Bealahisaplace,inwhichpilgrimwillgobeforegettingintoparadise.InJohnBunyan’sThePilgrim’sProgress,Bealahisaverypeaceful,happyandquietheaven.WhenJaneEyrefelthislove,shethoughthappinesswasnearbyher.“Bealah”wasquoted,whichdrewvividlyheremotionofperusinghappinessandlongingforlove.

2.3SocialCustoms

Differentcountryhasdifferentsocialcustoms.Therefore,readersshouldavoidusingtheirowncustomstoexplainthemeaningofthepassage.

Example1:

Therearesuchseveralspeechesinamaterial:

“Whydon'tyougotochurch?

”askedtheminister.Thenonchurchgoerssaid,“Well,I'lltellyou.ThefirsttimeIwenttochurchtheythrewwaterinmyface,andthesecondtimetheytiedmetoawomanI'vehadtokeepeversince.”“Yes,”saidtheminister,“andthenexttimeyougothey'llthrowdirtonyou”（Qi,2006）.

Forunderstandingofthisreadingmaterial,thestudentmustknow:

1）“ThefirsttimeIwenttochurchtheythrewwaterinmyface”meanswhenparentshugthenewbornbabytothechurchforbaptism,pastorthrewwaterinthechild’sface;2）“thesecondtimetheytiedmetoawomanI'vehadtokeepeversince.”meanstheyheldtheweddingceremonyinthechurch.Thisarticlereferstothesituationwhenawesternerdies;pastorfinallypraysandpullsuptheearthtothecoffintocarryonburyingagain.IfthereaderisnotfamiliarwiththereligionculturalknowledgeintheBritishandAmericancountry,heorshecancausetheunderstandingofbeingblocked,letaloneappreciateshumor.

Example2:

“Assoonastheweddingceremonywasove