The Application Of Relevanec Theory To The Teaching Of Business English Reading

To date, mainstream reading comprehension researches can be roughly categorized into three tributaries. First of all, from a philological point of view, researchers think that reading comprehension is only the simple accumulation of interpretation of words and phrases. Second, in terms of psycholinguistic knowledge, researchers conclude reading comprehension as three interrelated and recursive processes: perceptual processing, parsing processing and the utilization processing Third, in the area of cognitive linguistics, researchers view reading comprehension as two opposite information processing processes by using schema theory: bottom-up and top-down. Though so many different perspectives have led to our overall understanding, our knowledge about the nature of reading comprehension is still not enough.Since Relevance Theory (RT) is first proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition, the theory has been widely and successfully applied to analyze stylistic features, translation, syntax, discourse, literature, advertisement and so on. Business English (BE) is a highly communicative activity which differs from General English. This thesis analyzes the features of Business English such as the lexical, syntactic and textual features. Based on the features, RT also provides a valuable theoretical basis to the teaching of BE reading comprehension.In terms of the framework of RT, this thesis analyzes the nature of reading comprehension as the following: Reading as an Inference-making Process; Reading as an Optimal Relevance-seeking Process; Reading as a Context-choosing Process. BE is only one type of reading comprehension, so RT can also be applied to BE reading comprehension. First, it helps readers figure out the intended meanings of ambiguous words; Second, it is conducive to accounting for various syntactic features such as the lengths and types of sentences; Third, it contributes to analyzing and appreciating rhetorical devices such as pun,metaphor and irony; Fourth, it is of much help in establishing coherence in discourses which seem to be incoherent as a result of cultural default.In order to check the significance of the application of RT to the BE reading comprehension, a four-month comparative experiment is made between one class with traditional teaching method and another with the input of RT. The subjects of the experiments are all from Shandong International University. Through three stages of pre-test, observation and post-test, the thesis comes to the conclusion that RT plays positive roles in BE reading comprehension.At the end of the thesis, some pedagogical implications are given such as the enhancement of culture input, texts authenticity and extra-class activities. Meanwhile, BE teachers'roles should also be changed from a transmitter into a designer with the competence of balancing the language and business knowledge. Last but not least, teachers should promote students to search for the context assumption.