A Study Of Correlation Between L2 Reading, Building Of Mental Representations And L2 Language Proficiency In The Frame Of Structure Building

For many years, reading process has been abundantly studied from the perspective of psychology, and many language processing models have been explored. Structure Building is one of the very important language comprehensive models. Suppression is the kernel of Structure Building, and it has been proved an important component influencing reading comprehension. With more and more researchers beginning to pay attention to suppression, exploring its role in reading comprehension has also become a research focus. And there have been some studies exploring the effect of suppression on other variables (such as language proficiency and building of mental representations, etc.) in reading comprehension. But these studies are only constricted into theories, without data analysis. In the frame of Structure Building, this study explored the correlation between L2 reading, building of mental representations and L2 language proficiency by analyzing the data. Then combining with Structure Building and its suppression, the study explained the correlation between the three variables.The thesis is composed of six parts. Part 1 is introduction, which illustrates the significance of the study. Part 2 is literature review, which classifies suppression's effects on other variables in reading in the frame of Structure Building. Part 3 is theoretical framework. Structure Building and its kernel—suppression are introduced here. In Structure Building, the goal of comprehension is to build a coherent mental representation or structure of the information being comprehended. Suppression is a general cognitive mechanism used to lower the activation level of the inappropriate or irrelevant information in language comprehension. It plays a vital role in understanding words, in anaphoric reference, in cataphoric access and in forgetting surface information.Part 4 is research design. This study, based on previous studies, designed three kinds of tests for the subjects, including Foreign Language Proficiency Test, English Reading Test, and Resolution of Co-referring Expression. After the tests for the 186 randomly chosen subjects, there were 150 effective samples left. Then, this study analyzed the correlation between L2 reading, building of mental representations and L2 language proficiency by correlation analysis and path analysis. Finally, we explained the correlation between the three variables from the perspective of suppression in Structure Building.Part 5 is data analysis and discussion. It includes data analysis, theoretical explanation, and integrated analysis. Part 6 is conclusions and implications. And we have got the following conclusions: (1) There is a significant positive correlation between L2 reading and building of mental representations. From correlation analysis, we found the correlation between L2 reading and building of mental representations is a significant positive correlation at 0.01 level. From path analysis, we could see Remote's (a test form of building of mental representations) direct effect on L2 Reading is 41.5%, and Immediate's (another test form of building of mental representations) direct effect on L2 reading is 12.4%, and their t values' accompanied probabilities respectively reach the significant level (.000 and .045). The analysis from theory shows that, to get efficient reading, the L2 readers must effectively suppress the irrelevant and inappropriate information in the context, thus, they can build a large and coherent mental structure, thereby L2 reading ability can be improved. (2) There is also a positive correlation between L2 language proficiency and building of mental representations. From correlation analysis, we can see the relation between L2 language proficiency and Immediate is a positive correlation at the 0.01 level; and there exists a positive correlation at the 0.05 level between L2 language proficiency and Remote. And the path analysis shows the direct effect of L2 language proficiency on Immediate is 40.7%, on Remote is 19.5%, and their t values' accompanied probabilities are also significant (.000 and .017). In theory, the learners with higher language proficiency have higher suppression efficiency, which directly affects the ability of mental representation building. So, the learners with higher L2 language proficiency have a higher ability of mental representation building. (3)There exists a positive correlation between L2 reading and L2 language proficiency at the 0.01 level from correlation analysis. The path analysis shows the direct effect of L2 language proficiency on L2 reading is 35.3%, and its t value's accompanied probability is significant (.000). In theory, we explain the correlation by combining suppression with resource theory and verbal efficiency hypothesis: The processing resources in the cognitive system are limited, and these resources are shared by different tasks. Fast word-decoding can release limited resources for higher level language comprehension, and this is very important for efficient reading. In concrete L2 reading, if the learners' corresponding language proficiency is improved, the resources left to suppression in working memory are more. Thus, efficient suppression is available, and the learners' L2 reading proficiency will be improved.In a word, in the frame of Structure Building, suppression plays a vital role in L2 reading, this makes strong correlation exist between L2 reading, building of mental representations and L2 language proficiency, and this correlation has also been confirmed by our data analysis.