The Effect Of Context On English Reading Comprehension

In pragmatics, context is an important concept which is used in various fields. Because of the practical value of context, a lot of scholars make researches on it and give different classifications to context. In this thesis, the author has studied theories of context, especially lexical context, cultural context and situational context from the perspectives of linguistics and non-linguistics to prove their effects on reading comprehension.Based on the theories of contexts and reading comprehension, three hypotheses are raised which are used to verify the real effects of contexts on English reading comprehension. An empirical study is carried out among 60 sophomores (in two classes) of Math major and Chinese major at Changchun University. Four-group reading tests and a questionnaire designed by the author are used as instruments. The collected data are studied by quantitative and qualitative analyses.The results of the empirical study reveal that the lexical context helps readers guess word meanings, and restrict the key words recognition, which has a significant influence on reading comprehension. The effect of cultural context is relatively weaker than lexical context in reading comprehension. There are two reasons about this result: the first reason is the subjects have not enough cultural background when they are reading; the second is when they read passages they don't intentionally comprehend the whole text in virtue of cultural context. Situational context can help students comprehend the whole passage effectively.The results of this empirical study prove that the three contexts have the influence on reading comprehension and contextual awareness in reading is crucial to L2 teachers who should help their students to apply the theory of context to their reading practice to improve their reading ability.