A Study On The Application Of Cognitive Context Theory In College English Reading Teaching

It has dawned on us at the end of the twentieth century, nature of reading, asone kind of indirect written language communication pattern, is a dynamiccommunication process between writer and reader. Or rather, it underlies optimalskills concerning reading，which is an important reason for most learners of Englishas a foreign language in their English learning. Furthermore, In the foreign languageteaching in our country, cultivation of reading ability is undoubtedly playing asignificant role, under guidance of English Course Requirements for Non-EnglishMajors (revised version,2004)which states clearly that the aim of college Englishteaching is to cultivate students’ strong reading ability as well as average ability oflistening, speaking, writing and translating. What’s more, it can still be seen theimportant position of English reading from higher level proficiency examinations ofCET４and CET6held twice every year and esp. The National Master’s Entrance Testof non English majors, in which reading part accounts for40%or involves70%oftotal scores, namely reading ability is a gut issue to success of such examinations.However, seeing feedback information drawn from the Test Center, reading is justthe very weak point at overall levels of English for our students, especially those inthe remote areas. When it comes to general themes of reading texts of evenintermediate level, quite a great number of students find it difficult to grasp mainidea and facts and details that explain main idea, and what is worse is that it is moredifficult for them to make certain analysis, reason and judge，and hypothesis of theviews and the attitudes of author grounded on objective facts, but only assumption.Among numerous traditional reading teaching models, teacher partiallyemphasizes on improvement of students’ reading（esp. exam）skills which areisolated, one-sided and static, such influential reading theories as “bottom-up” model, "top-down" model, interactive model, and Schema-theoretic model, and but neglectsdiscussion about reading as a whole process which is comprehensive, factual,dynamic, optional and optimal. Therefore, there is not a satisfactory set of effectivestrategies on how to improve ability of reading comprehension. In the first aspect ofstrategy knowledge, more attention is paid to the localized strategies in connectionwith word meaning and sentence structures, the processing of linguistic symbols, butin the meantime neglect global strategies which require top-down processes andinteractive processes of reading and aggravate readers’ cognitive burden, ignore twoparties’ communicative intention, underestimate readers’ active role in readingprocess, and have not reveal reading significance fully. In contrast with the firstabove model, top-down model begins from a higher level or more abstract schemasand background information and mobilizes knowledge previously stored in readers’mind to interpret the text and that continues as long as text confirms theirexpectations, which especially requires that readers have certain second languageknowledge and are very skilled in cognition of language structure, but this is verydifficult to achieve for second language reading learners, for it ignores a fact thatlanguage is the basis of reading, namely, exact meaning of some important detailsare missed where bottom-up processing strategies have to be applied, althoughgeneral idea of a text is understood. Interactive model means a constantly interactivemodel between "down-top" model and "top-down" model, which stresses readingprocess is not only "bottom-up" or "top-down" process, but also integration andsimultaneous processing of the two processes. Schema-theoretic model of readingwith the development of psychological linguistics blends views of psychology withreading research and considers that reading process not only contains languagecomprehension of down-top model, but also involves cognitive process of top-downmodel, is not as readers’ passive absorption process but a mutual manifestnesscommunication process, a dynamic interaction between input information andschema knowledge in readers’ mind. Although it shows reader’s reading ability isdecided by three schemas: linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema.However, in the real reading practice and teaching, schema theory only stresses the content schema and the formal schema but neglects basic part, linguistic schema,without which reading comprehension is surely sunk into a careless guess ordisorder. It can be seen that the above reading teaching models have both theirfeatures and advantages, and insufficiencies, especially for Chinese students whostudy English as a foreign language. Indeed, reading itself is a very complexpsychological process and one special communicative activity. In addition, any textis edited through linguistic signs containing author’s own ideas, thinking, feeling,attitude and information for communication. Language signs themselves can notautomatically deliver too much information or meaning to reader, can merely pointout to direction of comprehension and take him to presume, judge and reconstructnew information by using his owned knowledge, which may result in varyingunderstanding inordinately even to the same text from the same author. Hence, inresponse to lack of very efficient reading teaching models, it stands to reason that theexploration of a more satisfactory reading teaching model on basis of some theoriesthat get more to the essence of reading should be made.In responding to demand of a more effective reading teaching strategy, thisthesis tentatively goes on a quest for more suitable and rational theory for that after areview of as many relevant theories and previous models as possible and applies itinto reading teaching practice to test its effectiveness.Fortunately, cognitive context theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson inContext exerts a powerful impact on communication and achieves both descriptiveand explanatory adequacy in utterance or text, reflecting the nature of reading, anddiscards traditional study of context which mainly emphasizes functions of externalworld from static angle and ignores functions of mental activities of human being incommunication. Therefore, it can be presumed that cognitive context theory incombination with prior reading teaching theories may be theoretical basis of a moreeffective reading model, with which readers’ comprehension may be promoted a lot.In order to answer the above mentioned model matter, an empirical study isdevised to be carried out to investigate effectiveness of reading model (or strategy ortraining) under the guidance of cognitive context for student subjects with educational background of English as foreign language. Over consecutive fourteenweeks of empirical study,60non-English major sophomores of two classes fromChangchun Normal College are chosen as the participants. English reading pre-testand post-test as well as a questionnaire regarding information like reading strategiesand cognitive context employed in the study.What is more，this study aims to solve three problems as follows:1．Whether the main problems presumed exist in way of readers’ readingstrategies？2．Whether making of a reading strategy on the basis of cognitive contextproves to be rational and capable of being dealt with?3. Whether adoption of the reading teaching model makes more evidentcontribution to improvement of learners’ reading comprehension?The thesis of study is composed of five parts:The first part is introduction which contains background of the study, purposeof the study and organization of the paper. The second part is literature review whichmainly covers theories pertinent like previous researches on context and cognitivecontext, and cognitive context in relevance theory, cognitive context and readingcomprehension like current situations in English reading teaching in college andmainstream models of reading comprehension and their defects like bottom-upmodel, top-down model, interactive model and schema-theoretic model, andapplication of cognitive context in English reading teaching to improve readingability, and reconstruction of cognitive context in reading. The third part presentsmethodology of the study containing research questions, subjects, instruments likereading comprehension samples analysis, data collection, experimental andanalytical procedures in detail. The fourth is made up of analyses and summationswhich underlie the data from questionnaire and reading tests from pre-test andpost-test during experimental stages through SPSS18.0(Statistical Package forSocial Science) with a discussion concerning the analyzed findings. A conclusionis drawn in the fifth part together with a discussion over major finding results,implications for English teaching and learning, a hint for further research, and limitations of this study.After the experiment, analyses on basis of the data obtained from thequestionnaire and reading tests from pre-test and post-test stages through SPSS18.0(Statistical Package for Social Science) conducted with discussion concerningthe analyzed results displayed presented in the empirical study.The major findings summarized from this study are as following:(1) The study reveals that of all the five reading strategies, interactive modelmarks the first, followed by “top-down” model, and Schema-theoretic model withslightly different frequencies used in students’ reading, and “bottom-up” model andcognitive context strategy fall back far away. Most of all the types of the readingstrategies or models are presented by modal auxiliaries in the experiment, which mayresult from knowledge of reading or gained in traditional way of teaching; cognitivecontext strategy in RT is almost neglected by all.(2) The making of a reading strategy on the basis of cognitive context proves tobe rational and capable of being dealt with, as after a review of as many relevanttheories and previous reading models as possible a comprehensive reading model（orstrategy）which integrates with advantages of prior models and which bases itself oncognitive context theory of RT.(3) The results of the study presented through the obtained data may show thatthe experimental group has achieved better than the control group in post-test, whichcan in large part be attributed to application of into reading teaching. Or rather, thesystemic training of reading based on cognitive context model of RT basically tendsto work much well to improve English reading ability.Altogether, such a reading teaching model（or strategy）, deductively, wouldbetter be tried out for Chinese students’ English reading course.In addition, on the basis of the findings from the empirical study, somepedagogical and learning implications are drawn:For one thing, in spite of the fact that limitation exists in the current study, thefindings suggest effective, hence, in teaching, instructors better integrate informationof cognitive context model in RT with other routine reading skills course. For another, it is urgent time that instructors recognized significance of newcognitive context theory in RT and other theories or findings in cognitivepragmatics，cognitive linguistics and the like, and put a deserving emphasis onpresentation of them in order that students may comprehend completely andcorrectly the essence of reading or other language skills, which also helps theircognitive development with further learning of English.