语境理论视角下高中英语阅读技能的分析.doc

An Approach to Harmony and Aesthetics in the Translation of Chinese Prose
广西师范学院师园学院
2012届本科毕业论文

题目：语境理论视角下高中英语阅读技能的分析

院 系 名 称： 外国语言文学系
专 业 名 称： 英 语
学 号： SY0803129
姓 名： 莫江莉
指 导 教 师（职称）： 胡静芳（讲师)

二〇一二年五月　

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Analysis on English Reading Skills in Senior Middle Schools from the Perspective of Context Theory

A Thesis Submitted by Shiyuan College of
Guangxi Teachers Education University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

By
Mo Jiang-li
Supervisor: Hu Jing-fang

May, 2012
摘要
阅读，是英语学习的基本技能之一，也是提高学生英语能力的重要途径。只有通过有效的阅读获得广泛的知识，学生的英语水平才能有进一步的提高。对于高中生来说，由于学习阶段的重要性，提高英语阅读能力就显得尤其重要。
因此，本文拟将在语境理论的基础之上分析高中生的英语阅读。结合文献综述法和分析法，本文旨在为高中生英语阅读能力的提高提供一些措施。本文首先对语境理论进行介绍，奠定本文的研究基础；其次分析英语阅读中应用语境理论的重要性，这部分不仅探讨了语境在阅读中的作用，还分别研究了知识语境、情景语境和文化语境的作用；再次，本文从学生和教师等角度出发，总结了高中英语阅读中存在的问题，指出利用语境理论提高英语阅读的必要性；针对这种现状，本文提供一些在语境中提高高中英语阅读的建议，不仅学生要从背景知识、词汇、阅读技巧等方面努力，教师还应改进教学方法。通过分析，本文指出通过学生和教师的共同努力，运用语境理能够有效提高学生的英语阅读能力。
关键词:语境；英语阅读技能；教学方法；分析

Abstract
Reading, one of the basic skills in English learning, is also an important way to improve the students’ English level. Only obtaining the wild knowledge through the effective reading, can the students improve their English? For the students in senior middle school, which is an significant stage in education, the improving of reading ability is more important.
Therefore, this paper will analyze the English reading in Senior Middle school under the context theory. With the methods of literature review and analysis, this paper aims to give some suggestions for the improvement of students’ reading ability. The paper firstly introduces the context theory, offering the theoretical foundation of this paper. Then the paper studies on the importance of context theory in reading comprehension, and this part not only talks about the context’ s function in reading comprehension, but also discusses the linguistic context, situational context, cultural context in reading comprehension. Later, the paper summaries the problems existing in English reading in senior middle school from the aspects of students as well as teachers, emphasizing the necessity of the application of context theory in reading comprehension. Finally, the paper puts forward some suggestions in the reading teaching based on context theory. It is proved the students should pay attention to increase the background knowledge of English, expand the vocabulary, use the effective reading strategies, and the teachers also should improve the teaching methods. Through the analysis, the paper comes to the conclusion that through the effort of the teachers and students, the application of the context theory can improve the students’ English reading ability.
Key Words: context; English reading skills; teaching methods；analysis

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CONTENTS
Chapter One Introduction…..……………………………………………..………1
Chapter Two Present Problems……………………………………………………1
2.1 The Current Role of Reading in English Learning…………………...............….1
2.2 Students’ Troubles of English Reading…………………………………………..2
2.3 Teachers’ Teaching Problems in English Class..……. ……………................….3
Chapter Three Literature Review…………………………………………….…...3
3.1 Brief Review of the Context Theory…………………………….………….........3
3.2 Brief Review of the Relevance Theory….…………………..……………….…..4
Chapter Four Analysis………………………………………………….………….5
4.1 Context’s Function in Reading Comprehension………………...………….....…5
4.2 Linguistic Context’s Function in Reading Comprehension….………………..…6
4.3 Situational Context’s Function in Reading Comprehension...…………..…….…6
4.4 Cultural Context’s Function in Reading Comprehension...…………………...…7
Chapter Five Suggestions……………………………………………….……....…7
5.1 Increasing Students’ Background Knowledge of English…………..…...….........7
5.2 Expanding Students’ Vocabulary………………...………………………….........8
5.3 Providing the Effective Reading Strategies....…………..……………….….……9
5.3.1 The Application of Guessing Meaning…..……………..…...........……….....9
5.3.2 The Application of Deduction……………………………………..…………9
5.3.3 The Application of Reading Strategies……………………...………. ...…...10
5.4 Teachers’ Measures in Improving Students’ Reading………………………....…10
5.4.1 Selecting the Relevant Reading Materials………..…………......….….…...10
5.4.2 Controlling the Procedure of Students’ Reading……………………............11
Chapter Six Conclusion…………………………………………………….…......11
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..........13
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………….……..14
作者简介……………………………………………………………………….……...15
声明................................................................................................................................16

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广西师范学院师园学院2012届本科毕业论文
Chapter One Introduction
It is well known that reading is an important way to learn a new language. As a key input channel, reading is the basis of knowledge accumulation. Without reading, it is difficult to learn English well. Besides, reading is an important skill which can make learners much wiser and more knowledgeable. There is no doubt that English reading is of great importance in English learning.
However, there are some problems existing in English reading among senior high school students. When doing reading comprehension, students tend to focus on finding out the answer to questions, but lack of overall understanding of an article. As a result, they do not understand the author’s intention of the article or the implied meaning, or learn something from the article. What’s more, some problems also exist in English reading teaching, such as neglecting the cultivation of learners’ reading skills, reading habit and improving their language ability. Teachers tend to analyze the vocabulary and grammar rules most of the time in class with by talking the traditional teaching methods.
Lots of experts and scholars point out that there is a close relationship between reading and context. Reading comprehension is greatly dependent on the context, and it requires the reader to make effective use of various contextual knowledge (Zhu, 2010：166). In order to help students to improve their reading comprehension, it is essential for teachers to guide students how to read, how to apply context theory in English reading. Therefore, this thesis will explore some strategies for English reading so as to improve students’ reading ability.
Chapter Two Present Problems
2.1 The Current Role of Reading in English Learning
“Reading is an essential skill for English as a second foreign language students; and for many, reading is the most important skill to master (Anderson, 2004:1).’’ Reading is an active process related to solving problems and getting the relevant information. Just as many linguists say, the less reading means the slower progress; the more reading, the quicker progress. Without reading, it is difficult to learn English. Therefore, reading is the key to determine whether you are a successful English learner for most Chinese students. Reading is the most important way to learn a new language, and thus it is essential to expand the reading scope. Large amounts of extracurricular reading is helpful to expand reader’s vocabulary, enlarge the scope of reader’s background knowledge, mould reader’s mind and widen reader’s horizon. There is no doubt that reading is the basis of language learning, and it plays a significant and positive role in English learning.
2.2 Students’ Troubles of English Reading
Most students in senior high school don’t have the awareness of context and they have little cultural background knowledge. “Background knowledge includes all experience that a reader brings to a text: life experiences, educational experiences, knowledge of how texts can be organized rhetorically, knowledge of how one’s first language works, knowledge of how the second language works, and cultural background and knowledge, to name a few areas (Anderson, 2004:11).’’ It can influence reading comprehension and improve reading ability as well. Just as Carell points out that the main reason to cause reading difficult is lacking the necessary background knowledge (qtd. in Wang, 2002:97). Some readers have no background knowledge to activate prior to reading about the material, and thus they can not predict the content of a passage with their prior knowledge. Besides, most readers just comprehend reading materials word by word, they are unaware that background knowledge can help them understand the reading materials better.
Along with the increasing of lexical items, senior high school students are lack of necessary vocabulary. Vocabulary is the basic elements of reading and makes great influence on reading comprehension. Without enough vocabulary, readers cannot understand the reading materials well. A student’s knowledge about English vocabulary will have a direct influence on his or her performance in reading comprehension. Therefore, lacking of vocabulary is also one of the reasons to cause difficult reading. There are many reasons to cause students have poor vocabulary, but one of the important reasons is that the learners cannot find the certain associations between vocabulary and context, which can help them enlarge the quantity of vocabulary to some extents. What they usually do is to mechanically memorize the meaning of new words, which makes them forget the new words easily. As a result, students will lose the interest and motivation to read and to learn vocabulary.
Senior high school students have poor reading skills and strategies. If some parts of a text are strange to some students, they may ignore or skip them, but efficient reading, especially the techniques of scanning and skimming, require it. Skimming means glancing rapidly through a text to determine its gist, while scanning refers to glancing rapidly through a text to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose (Nuttall, 2000: 49). The reading skills of skimming and scanning are so important to students that they must grasp how to use them. When doing reading comprehension, it is better for students to concentrate on the important bits, skim the rest, and skip the insignificant parts. Besides, “Students tend to approach reading texts expecting to read them thoroughly and to stop only when they have understood every word (Scrivener, 2002: 153).’’ Students do not form the habit of quick understanding of the reading material. It is better to read phrase by phrase instead of word by word. In addition, students lack the ability to predict the words, sentences and contents of a passage. They do not have the awareness to make inference by using background information.
Senior high school students often tend to focus on finding out the key to questions, but lack of overall understanding of an article when doing reading comprehension exercises. As a result, they do not understand the author’s intention or implied meaning. Just as Wang Aizhi (2008: 57) says when students are doing reading comprehension, they often only pay attention to the literal meaning of words and sentences fail to actively use context to read and activate the prior knowledge that students have, and thus it will cause the phenomenon of "see trees, not see the forest". Besides, it requires the skills of detailed analysis and reasoning to understand the whole passage. Because most students tend to pay attention to the apparent meaning of the article, they often neglect the purpose and the function that the article conveys, they can not cultivate the ability to analyze and reason the reading materials. Therefore, the learners often have a smattering of articles and don’t know exactly what the article says and why the author writes it.
2.3 Teachers’ Teaching Problems in English Class
It is well known that reading teaching is of great importance in English teaching. However, there exist some problems in reading teaching in senior high school, which makes reading teaching less effective. First of all, influenced by the traditional grammatical teaching mode, teachers put much emphasis on the analysis of vocabulary and grammar rules, some set phrases and sentences. Secondly, reading teaching in classroom is teacher-oriented which makes students have less interested in the reading class. Besides, teachers don’t pay attention to help students master some reading skills and strategies which is very significant in reading comprehension. In order to catch up with the teaching schedule, teachers often neglect to provide some relevant background knowledge which can help students better understand reading material. Thirdly, most teachers adopt the “standard answer” as the only criterion no matter what creativity students answer questions. Teachers fail in cultivating the thinking ability of students. Furthermore, method used in reading teaching are unchangeable which make students feel boring and greatly reduce their interest in English reading.
Chapter Three Literature review
3.1 Brief Review of the Context Theory.
Modern linguists have not only placed great emphasis on the study of context but have considerably broadened its scope and have also made great achievements to some extents. The word context initially refers to the meaning in a certain sentence; however, the range of the term context has been widened in several directions. “It is no longer restricted to what immediately precedes and follows, but may cover the whole passage and sometimes the whole book in which a word occurs, and in some cases even the entire social or cultural setting (Zhang, 1990: 233).’’ What’s more, some linguists point out that context is the matrix created by language as discourse and as a form of social practice; therefore, it is viewed not as a natural given, but as a social construct (Kramsch, 1994: 46). Although the definition is comparatively brief, but generally speaking, it clearly shows the widen range that context involved.
Along with the definition of the context, many linguists have devoted to study the types of context. Malinowski firstly divides context into context of situation and context of culture, which pushes the study of context to a new height. In his opinion, context of situation refers to the objective environment which is directly related to the language communication activity, while context of culture refers to the whole cultural background where the participants of language communication activity live (Zhu, 2005: 7). The three main types of context are linguistic context, situational context and cultural context. Linguistic context refers to the internal environment of discourse, and situational context means the