A Study On Discourse Theories And Its Implications For Reading Pedagogy

The thesis attempts to study reading pedagogy from the perspective of discourse and makes concrete suggestions as implications for EFL reading instruction of English majors in China.Present reading class is always confined within the explanation of vocabulary and the analysis of certain sentences, which leads to many practical problems. The thesis aims to change the format of traditional reading class into a discourse guided one by elaborating the advantages of reading via discourse comprehension and mental construction and processing of discourse, which constitute the main part of the thesis. Finally the implications of the study from the perspective of discourse are discussed.We consider discourse as the basic meaningful unit during the course of reading, which takes place within a certain linguistic, cultural and situational contexts. Only in this way can we properly decode any reading material. Cohesion and coherence are two contributors with which we can identify whether a passage is meaningful or a group of isolated sentences. To effectively decode a certain passage, we are expected to have the knowledge of the genres and organizations of discourse which will guarantee us to shoot the arrow at the target. A discourse can be stored in our memory in three levels: surface representation, propositional representation and situational model. The surface or verbatim form of a sentence is stored in working memory only until its meaning is understood, and then purged to make room for the next sentence, so we may conclude that the memory for discourse is the prerequisite of discourse comprehension, and discourse comprehension is helpful for the memory for discourse conversely. A discourse is thought to be stored in the form of a net of propositions which are presented in spatial order or of the relationship of cause and effect. The decoding of a discourse can only be partially possible or fairly difficult if we do not connect textual information to our prior knowledge—schema, which generally can be realized in two forms: formal schema and content schema.Reading is not randomly carried out; it is definitely for a certain purpose. When we decode a passage from the perspective of discourse, we may achieve more sensible and suitable understanding of the reading material and better grasp of the linguistic items within the passage. What is more important, it has the most salient pedagogical implications for the EFL teaching instruction as well as the further research which will bring forth more valuable insights into EFL reading in China.