A Study On The Teaching Of College English Reading: A Perspective From Relevance Theory

Reading, one of the most important ways to get information in our life, is also the skill most emphasized in college English teaching. Up to now, the mainstream theoretical frameworks for college English reading researches can be roughly categorized into three groups: top-down reading model, bottom-up reading model and interactive reading model. Based on these theories, many scholars explored the factors affecting English reading comprehension from different perspectives, and most of them considered readers'ability of inferring as one of the most important factors affecting readers'English reading comprehension. Relevance Theory, a cognitive approach to human communication, has been employed more and more frequently to guide the researches on college English reading in recent years. Nevertheless, few people tried to explore what factors will affect English reading comprehension from the perspective of Relevance Theory, and it has not been provided that how to apply Relevance Theory to improving the learning and teaching of College English reading. Thus, this thesis attempts to explore how to be an effective English reader and how to teach college English reading more effectively with the implications of Relevance Theory.The thesis firstly tries to interpret the inferential process of English reading and analyze the factors affecting English reading under the framework of Relevance Theory. Then based on the problems existing in current English reading, the author explores how to improve the learning and teaching of college English reading with more effective approach under the guidance of Relevance Theory. The implications of Relevance Theory for improving English reading proficiency can be concluded as:(1) searching for relevance with the help of cue words and topic sentence in bottom—up reading model;(2) searching for relevance with the help of background knowledge and questions attached to the reading text in top—down reading model;(3) searching for the optimal relevance with the help of both linguistic knowledge and background knowledge in interactive reading model;(4) to be an efficient English reader with good memory, good concentration. And the implications of Relevance Theory for improving teaching of college English reading are:(1) emphasizing on cultural background knowledge input;(2) cultivating students'awareness of analyzing writing style; (3) emphasizing on instruction of reading skills;(4) guiding students to find out optimal relevance in any possible ways.In a word, Relevance Theory provides us a new perspective to learn much more about the...