Studies On Construction And Integration Of Central Concepts And Their Teaching Applications In Text Comprehension

Text comprehension is one of important means for people to get information. It has been attached much importance to in recent years. Readers integrate and comprehend text information on the basis of all parts of information. They complete their comprehension according to part and whole understanding of the text. Therefore, text comprehension relies on the interaction of meaning between local and whole information.This paper, first, reviewed different periods of researches on text comprehension and made appropriate comments on them. It also discussed on main theories of English reading teaching. Then, it conducted four main experiments including five sub-experiments, and explored the construction and integration processing of central concepts during paragraph reading and text reading processes. Furthermore, it analyzed the relationship between central concept processing and learning factors, and carried out studies on reading comprehension based on reading strategies. At last, it established a central concept indexing model theory. The main parts are as follows.First, it reviewed research theories and ideas both on text comprehension and English reading teaching. Text comprehension began with studies on memory and representation, its current research fields involve in studies on the retrieval of central concepts, different dimensions of situational model and different processing of text information. English reading comprehension theories developed from the earliest Grammar-Translation theory to current Situational Model theory. Throughout the empirical researches and English reading teaching theories, it is found that the above two research fields gradually tend to draw together, that is, both studies develop from linguistic micro aspect to semantic macro aspect.Second, it explored the construction and integration processing during paragraph reading and text reading periods in narratives. Experiments on paragraph reading and text reading consisted of four main experiments including five sub-experiments. Experiment 1 managed to use the rules of information distribution theory of English linguistics to define central concepts by theme-relatedness in narrative passages. Experiment 2 explored the paragraph information processing of central concepts under theme-related foils. The result showed that central concepts are accessed faster than peripheral words. Experiment 3 explored the paragraph information processing of central concepts under theme-unrelated foils. The result showed that central concepts are more difficult to access than peripheral words. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 demonstrated that the processing of central words defined by theme-relatedness in paragraphs was affected by foil features. When foil feature kept the same with the one of central words, i.e., theme-related, central words were more quickly accessed than peripheral words. When foil feature kept difference with the one of central words, central words were more difficult to access than peripheral words. Therefore, central concept information processing in paragraph was the processing of local information. It could infer that readers keep local coherence during paragraph reading. It easily caused interference in reading comprehension when local information did not keep coherence, i.e., no semantic connections between foils and central concepts. Experiment 4 explored text multiple central concept processing under theme-related foil condition. Experiment 5 explored text multiple central concept processing under theme-unrelated foil condition. Both experiment 4 and experiment 5 demonstrated text multiple central concepts are readily accessed than multiple peripheral concepts no matter what feature the foils had. Therefore, central concept processing in paragraph was a process of construction, central concept processing of the whole text was a process of integration. Both information processing of paragraph and text were the combination of construction and integration. The results of the processing led to form a mental situational model.Third, it explored research on reading teaching based on learning strategies. It investigated the relationships among paragraph reading, text reading, and learning factors. The survey showed readers tended to use comprehensive reading strategies much frequently during text reading. On the contrary, they tended to use local strategies much frequently in paragraph reading. According to these surveys, teaching training programs were carried out. Before training, text book analysis of fast reading of College English was conducted. It showed that questions of looking for specific and local information occupied a larger proportion than comprehensive questions at the beginning level of reading. With the increase of reading level, the proportion of comprehensive questions added gradually and surpassed the proportion of local questions. So trainings on task-oriented paragraph local reading strategy and task-oriented text comprehensive reading strategy were planned to guide English classroom reading learning. The training results revealed that task-oriented text comprehensive reading strategy improved reading achievement, but the paragraph local reading strategies had no significance to the improvement of reading performance.Fourth, central concept indexing model theory has been established. It believes that people understand texts following the rules of passive information construction and active strategy integration during paragraph reading and text reading periods. Paragraph information processing in reading mainly relies on passive activation and construction. Text information processing in reading mainly relies on active integration. No matter what kind of reading it is, information processing involves in three levels of information processing: input level, implicit level, and output level. Central concepts are processed through these three levels and finally are integrated into a semantic related mental model.Above all, the results of this paper have many implications to text reading experimental research and English foreign language teaching of reading. From the perspective of its research method, it synthesized to use different methods, for example, self-reading method, word recognition, questionnaire, text book analysis, question edition and teaching training, etc. These methods are very helpful to the researches of text comprehension from the interdisciplinary point of view. From its theoretic view, it has explored the construction and integration processing in paragraph and text reading process, and also set up a central concept index model theory, all these efforts have made a contribution to the development of text information processing theories. From the perspective of teaching practice, it has proved text reading strategy benefits more to reading achievement. It also suggests English reading teaching should train students actively and tactically to construct information in paragraph reading and integrate information in text reading. By construction and integration, students can form coherent meaning of text.