Pragmatics Relevance Theory On The College English Reading Comprehension

Reading, one of the most important ways to get information in our life, is also the skill most emphasized in college English teaching. Relevance Theory, a cognitive approach to human communication, has been employed more and more frequently in teaching these days.The author of this paper supposed the Relevance Theory is effective in improving students'reading comprehension. And a four months'experiment was taken to prove it. The author analyzed the data of the survey, the pretest and the posttest by way of computer. It was certificated that taking Relevance Theory in teaching college students'Reading comprehension would be more effective than the traditional teaching method.The implications of Relevance Theory for improving English Reading comprehension can be concluded as:(1) searching for the Optimal Relevance in interactive reading model;(2) inferring word meaning with the help of background knowledge;(3) to be an efficient English reader with good memory, good concentration. And the implications of Relevance Theory for improving the teaching of College English Reading are:(1) emphasizing cultural background knowledge input;(2) cultivating students' awareness of analyzing writing style; (3) emphasizing instruction of reading skills;(4) guiding students to find out Optimal Relevance in any possible ways.In a word, Relevance Theory provides us a new perspective to learn much more about the complicated process of English Reading. It is sincerely hoped that these implications would be helpful in current College English Reading. But the paper focuses only on the reader's linguistic information and background to explain English Reading comprehension and it hasn't explained very clearly other factor's effects. This will be one of the important tasks in our further researches.