Context And English Reading Comprehension

No context, no text ; You know a word by the company it keeps? These two sentences have already been the mottos in English reading comprehension. To understand the context of language communication is one of the most important notions in comprehension. In order to understand what they read, Chinese students first must know the linguistic context, namely the English language knowledge, which includes (1) phonetic context, (2) grammatical context and (3) semantic context. On the other hand they must know non-linguistic context, or rather non ?language knowledge, including (1 )physical context, (2)encyclopedic context, (3)social context, (4)cultural context, and (5)cognitive context. In the process of English reading comprehension, Linguistic and non ?linguistic contexts are complementary. Neither can be left out. Only by helping students master as much knowledge as possible can they attain the ultimate goal successfullyeading comprehension.Based on Mr Lyons and He zhaoxiang?s theory that context is explained by knowledge, so context can be defined as a series of language and non ?language knowledge. With the help of context knowledge, some problems in English reading comprehension can be solved, such as the problems resulting from taking the words too literally, irrelevant discourse, ambiguous sentences and so on. By dealing with context and the role it plays in English reading comprehension, this thesis aims at helping Chinese students, non ?native speakers better understand English, increasing their reading ability and finally achieving successful communication.This thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is Introduction. Part II is the General Description of Context, two chapters included. The first chapter writes about definition and classification of context; The second chapter briefly describes the functions of context. Part III, Context and English Reading Comphehension consists of two chapters, one is linguistic context and English reading comprehension, the other non ?linguistic context and English reading comprehension. The fourth part is the Complementarity of Linguistic & Non ?Linguistic Context and English Reading Comprehension. The last one, Part V is the Conclusion.