Discourse-Analysis-Based Reading Teaching

For a long time, English teaching is usually fixed on grammar and vocabulary. However, every text is a discourse. If the teacher explains a text without analyzing the cohesion, information flow, theme, writing intention, writing skills, and the context involved, it is impossible for students to understand the text to the full. The author distributes pre-questionnaires to the students, in which the present situation of reading teaching and students' reading strategies are involved. The results of the pre-questionnaires show that students have some but far from enough reading strategies to solve reading problems. Thus, it is necessary to teach students in the discourse analysis approach which provides essential reading strategies. So, under the instruction of discourse-analysis theory, the author systematically trains the students by applying discourse analysis approach into reading for the following semester. After the experiment, post-questionnaires are given to students to test the effects of discourse-analysis-based-teaching-model. The answers to the questions in the post-questionnaires prove that discourse-analysis-based-teaching-model is feasible and effective. It helps students improve their reading ability as well as linguistic competence.This thesis consists of five parts. In Chapter One, the author introduces the background, the study purpose, the study method and the organization of this thesis. It gives introductory information of the thesis. In Chapter Two, four main theoretical frameworks contributing to the discourse analysis are fully discussed. They are Context, Cohesion, Theme and Rheme Development and Textual Patterns. Context consists of Cultural Context, Situational Context and Linguistic Context. Cohesion comprises two parts, grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Grammatical cohesion devices include Reference, Ellipsis, Substitution and Conjunction while lexical ones include Repetition, Synonymy and Collocation. Theme and Rheme Development deals with the information development which stresses Theme, Rheme and Thematic Development. Textual Pattern is to explain the relation between clauses and sentences, which can be summarized as Problem-Solution, General-Specific, Claim-Counterclaim, Narrative and so on. In Chapter Three, the author applies discourse analysis theory into the interpretation and explanation of one classical reading sample. The successful analysis of the text sets a good example for the discourse-analysis-based-teaching-model and proves the feasibility of discourse analysis approach into reading. In Chapter Four, pre-questionnaire survey and post-questionnaire survey are provided to further prove the feasibility and effectiveness of discourse-analysis- based-teaching-model. In the last chapter, the author summarizes the main points of this paper, points out the limitation of this paper and figures out some implications for further study.The present situation of foreign language teaching under discourse analysis approach is not mature. However, after assimilating the predecessors' research achievements, the author puts forward four perspectives for interpreting texts, which not only fulfills the discourse analysis theory but also opens new ways for reading teaching. Furthermore, the statistical results from questionnaires prove Discourse-analysis-based-teaching-model is effective and plausible. It is beneficial to reading teaching.