A Study On The Enlightenment Of Relevance Theory On The English Reading Comprehension Training

In 1986, Sperber and Wilson first proposed Relevance Theory (RT for short) in Relevance: Communication and Cognition, since then communication has been regarded as an ostensive-inferential process during which new and old information can be exchanged guiding by ostension, and continues to expand and complement communicators'dynamic cognitive context. According to RT, every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance, and only when such presumption is realized can successful communication be achieved with the fulfilled communicative intention. So far, RT, as the generalized cognitive theory of communication, causes great repercussions all over the world and has been applied in various fields. In China, it has been applied in a relatively narrowed range, mainly applied in stylistics, translation, and discourse analysis; while it's flourishing in a wide range of categories from abroad, such as philosophy, psychology, anthropology, neurobiology, mass communication, literature, stylistics, linguistics and other areas. This thesis is trying to guide English reading comprehension training under the theoretical framework of RT. As the main function of language learning is to communicate, RT's ostensive-inferential communication, cognitive context and optimal relevance can become the three breakthrough points assisting the cross-cultural reading comprehension training.The teaching of reading is supposed to be one of the most important courses in EFL classes. Reading comprehension, as the most crucial part in any English exam (such as CET 4, CET6, TEM 4, TEM 8, GRE, TOFEL, or IELTS), is playing a vulnerable and determinate role in English exams. That's why how to improve students'English-reading ability has become a top priority in today's English teaching. As the most effective channel to gain language competence, reading comprehension teaching mainly prevails in traditional word-grammar-translation teaching method. However, currently, along with the deepening of reading comprehension research and applying of reading strategies, traditional teaching model's disadvantages of inhibiting learners'improvement in reading proficiency have been gradually getting people's attention, thus, to some extent, English reading comprehension teaching has been revolutionized. But, as to the essence of reading comprehension, we still lack of profound insights into it, and there still is room for much improvement.Therefore, with a comparative review on the application of RT and the nature of cross-cultural communication, this thesis is an attempt to explore reading comprehension under the relevance-theoretic framework with certain practical examples; from RT's four enlightening aspects, which are the ostensive-inferential communicative reading model, cognitive contextual effects, relevance-theoretic reading strategies and extending implications for compensating RT's limitations, this thesis proves that the new assumption of applying RT into English reading training is feasible. The paper falls into five parts in all. First, the introduction gives a brief idea of RT's history, the significance of the research and its foundation and conditions to achieve the target. In chapter one, on the basis of clearing 3 key concepts of RT: ostensive-inferential communication, cognitive context and optimal relevance, it analyzes the application of RT from both home and abroad, and points out there is still space for much improvement on its application on English reading comprehension training. In chapter two, on the premise of the reading comprehension study review, it discusses RT's explanatory power and guidance of feasibility to its application on cross-cultural reading comprehension training respectively, combined with the analysis of nature of reading, its characteristics, and factors affecting the efficiency of reading comprehension. Chapter three proposes and discusses RT's enlightening points for English reading comprehension training with practical analysis from those four aspects: the ostensive-inferential communicational reading model, cognitive contextual effects, the relevance-theoretic reading comprehension procedure and the extending implications for compensating RT's limitations. At last, it concludes the exploratory significance of applying RT on English reading comprehension training, and points out the problems still existing in this research, and believes that English reading comprehension training under the theoretical framework of RT is still worth more extensive research and explorations.