Critical Reading In The Second Language / Foreign Language In The Context Of Theory Construction

Under the context of globalization, many problems about social and cultural theories of education arose. The dominate stance of English in the world indeed requires a critical response. English as an international methods of communication indeed needs critical approach to the study of discourse, because ideologies and cultural assumptions rooted in a wide series of English language discourses are more widely circulated in written than through spoken texts. It is very necessary for people to have resources and ability to critically examine the implicit exercise of power hidden in the discourses and texts which can mostly come through written texts and literacy education.CDA is the response to the rhetorical turn in the 1980s and also the basis of critical approach to related studies. First of all, through deconstructing social structure, which is constituted of discourse, CDA attempts to make inquiries into the hidden relationship between discourse and social cultural configuration in order to expose ideology and bias implied in discourse. Based on the SFL, CDA has done some research focusing on the critical studies in pedagogical practice, whose aim is to broaden and deepen the study of discourse and society from the perspective of critical linguistics and in the native language context. As to the case in China, the study of critical reading has been focused on discussing the significance of the critical thinking and some general introduction of western theories of CDA. The specific study of critical reading in ESL/EFL context is still rare and lacks a systematic study. Secondly, the opportunities and challenges in the field of English pedagogical practice brought about by the globalized postmodern context require clear recognition and theoretical guidance.So, some questions concerning the definition and theoretical foundation of critical reading and some problems existing in the domains both of ESL/EFL pedagogical practice and of CDA are taken as points of departure of this study. In this study, based on interdisciplinary theories involving philosophy, rhetoric (Western Classical Rhetoric, New Rhetoric and Contrastive Rhetoric), linguistics (Text Linguistics and Critical Linguistics), discourse analysis and psychology, a large amount of historical data together with theoretical and empirical scholarship concerning reading in native language, ESL and EFL context have been surveyed. Interdisciplinary and integrative methods have been employed to integrate both humanistic research methods such as history, description supported by tables and diagrams; and those of social sciences, whose referential focus is qualitative base, so as to construct the theories of critical reading in ESL/EFL context.A deep insight into the relationship between power, discourse and ideology serves as the basis of this study, whose research object is the intersubjectivity between writer and reader in ESL/EFL context. This study rests on the intersection in the research field of cross-linguistic and cross-culture. This study endeavors to make contribution in the following aspects:(1) On the base of making clear the rhetoric origin of critical reading and find its solid philosophical foundation, this study aims to redefine properly the key terms of"being critical","critical thinking"and"critical ability"and clarify their proper function in this study, so as to define properly"critical reading"in ESL/EFL context and clarify the essential functions.(2) Based on contrastive rhetoric, the attempt is made to find more solid theoretical basis for the intersubjective relationship between writing subject and reading subject in ESL/EFL context. The emphasis of individual and cultural-societal contributions of writers in contrastive rhetoric improves the subjectivity of interpretation by reader from another perspective. It provides solid foundation not only for the intersubjectivity between writer and reader in ESL/EFL context, but also for the pedagogical aim in ESL/EFL context.(3) Based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model, infusing the van Dijk's ideological theory and his insightful definition of discourse and combining the orientation of intersubjectivity, which is inspired by Bakhtin's"dialogism"and Habermas's communicative negotiated rationality, a more macro and inclusive theoretical construction for this study is achieved. In this study, the process of production of discourse and the process of consumption of discourse are defined as the dynamic intersubjective relationship between the writing subject and the reading subject. Operativity, applicability and explaining of this theoretical construction have been justified through detailed analysis of five specific discourses.This study is an attempt to build a comprehensive and dynamic construction of theories for the study of critical reading in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural context. Besides the theoretical implication to the research fields of critical reading in ESL/EFL context, some pedagogical implications can be drawn from this study: First, there is an urgent need to develop ESL/EFL readers or learners'more clearly articulated critical awareness of ideological influences on reading and their awareness of the explicate structure of ideologies in the working of power and ideology. Second, it is very necessary to pay much more attention to the attitudinal resources in appraisal theory, their relatedness with contrastive rhetoric theories and their reconfiguration in ESL/EFL reading teaching, especially their critical role of providing critical analytical tools in the process of critical reading in ESL/EFL context.There are some limitations in this study: (1) In this study, some other social factors may be neglected while much attention to the intersubjective and dynamic relationship between writer and reader is paid. (2) A larger corpus-based work is needed to further justify this study.