| English reading, which has an important position among English teaching, is an indispensable part of English learning for the high school students. The new English Curriculum Standards for Middle Schools requires the senior high school students to achieve a relatively high level in reading. Compared with the requirement, we still have a long way to go in the teaching of English reading in senior high school. The reason is that students are weak in English reading. The author of this thesis attributes the inadequacy of students'reading to the traditional teaching model based on understanding text at sentence-level, which is the result of language-centered and teacher-centered reading class. In other words, the major reason is that both students and teachers do not have an objective view on the nature of reading.There are two mottos on English reading comprehension:"No context, no text"; and"You know a word by the company it keeps"indicating the close relationship between context and language.Because of the close relationship between context and language, the study of context has aroused great interest in linguistic circles. Context was first used by Malinowsky in 1923. His notion of context refers to the situation, but it lacks consideration of the linguistic context. Besides him, many other scholars also probe into this field, such as Hymes, Lyons, Firth and Leech, etc. In China, there are also scholars who have made much progress in this field, such as Hu Zhuanglin, He Zhaoxiong, etc. But most of them pay more attention to linguistic context and neglect non-linguistic context. This thesis concentrates both on the linguistic context and non-linguistic context and holds that they are of equal importance. The thesis presents a detailed introduction of the studies of context at home and abroad and attempts to provide the definition and classification of context, as well as roles of context from the semantic and pragmatic perspectives. On the basis of a general study of many scholars, this thesis attempts to categorize context into linguistic context and non-linguistic context.As we know, semantics and pragmatics are two branches of linguistics. The functions of context in semantic field mainly refer to the roles of the linguistic context in influencing and restricting the meaning in respect of semantic co-occurrence and disambiguation. The study of function of context from pragmatic perspective attempts to explore the roles of non-linguistic context in influencing the practical use of language in the particular context. Two terms are used to describe the major roles: selectional restrictions and interpretation. The roles of the context in determining the speaker's language selected as appropriate to the context is termed as selectional restrictions; and those in supporting the hearer's inference of what the speaker really means is termed as interpretation. That is to say, semantics focuses on the lexical meaning of language while pragmatics stresses the practical use of language in particular contexts. Both of them pay great attention to context. This thesis intends to study the functions of context from semantic and pragmatic perspectives respectively and attempts to apply contextual theory to English reading teaching at Chinese senior high school, and it aims to help students master the linguistic knowledge and non- linguistic knowledge as much as possible so that their reading interest and reading efficiency can be improved.This thesis attempts to improve students'reading proficiency by implementing context theory instruction in English reading. To investigate the relationship between context-based reading teaching and English reading proficiency, the following specific questions were addressed in the present experimental study:(1) Does context-based reading teaching stimulate the students'enthusiasm?(2) Does context-based reading teaching improve the students'reading ability?(3) Does context-based reading teaching improve the students'reading achievement?The author decided to write the thesis on the feasible instructional patterns of this model based on her research about achievements in this field and an experimental study she actually carried out in No.18 Senior High School in Zaozhuang. The author chose two classes from No. 18 Middle School in Zaozhuang, one as the control group and the other, the experiment group. The two groups were at the same level of English proficiency. One class has 55 students, the other has 57 students. In the control class, no contextual theory instruction was implemented, while in the experimental class, contextual theory instruction was conducted regularly in the 4-month study.Two questionnaires concerning English reading and contextual theory were administrated to collect data, which lay a foundation for the study. Moreover, interviews were conducted and journals were kept to investigate changes in students' attitudes and interests towards English reading. Statistical instruments from SPSS11.0 and Frequency Analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data, and descriptive analyses were conducted to get the information of students attitudes towards English reading and their utilization of context theory in English reading; independent sample t-tests were used to identify the significance among pre-test, mid-test and post-test in English reading proficiency and English achievements by implementing context theory in English reading. The author gives teachers and students some suggestions based on her own research and experiment.The results of this research indicated that in this teaching context, students in the experimental class improved their English reading ability more rapidly than those in the control class. This teaching model can stimulate their reading interest and improve their reading ability. Their reading strategies also develop very fast. This research offered a good way for the teachers in English reading teaching. The author concludes that it is feasible and beneficial to use contextual theory instruction in Chinese senior high school English classrooms.
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