A Study On The Application Of Cognitive Context To The Teaching Of English Reading In Senior High School

Reading is one of the most important parts of English learning. In essence, it isan interactive process between writers and readers through printed words. Althoughmany studies have been conducted in this field over the past years，few of them aredone from the perspective of cognitive context.Context has long been taken as a static concept. However, with the developmentof cognitive science as well as the further research of language communication,Cognitive context, as the core part of relevance theory, was proposed by Sperber andWilson (1986)‘According to this theory，communication is regarded as anostensive-inferential process. Cognitive context is a psychological construct, and aseries of assumptions stored in human being’s mind. It involves not only co-text andthe physical environment where the communication takes place, but also expectationsfor future, scientific hypotheses, religious beliefs，assumptions, faith, memory，cultural knowledge and the inherent view on the mental state of the speaker. Reading,a kind of communication between writers and readers, obviously is also anostensive-inferential cognitive process, in which the rules of language communicationmust be followed. Consequently, cognitive context along with the relevance theorycould also be applied to reading and its analysis.This thesis aims to explore the effect of cognitive context along with relevancetheory on the teaching of English reading in senior high school. Through the research，the author tries to answer the following questions: How can we apply cognitivecontext into the teaching of reading? Is this new reading teaching methodimplemented with cognitive context positively related to students’ readingcompetence? Questionnaires are distributed to students to see their current applicationof cognitive context in reading, and the relationship between their grades of readingcomprehension part in the test and the score of this questionnaire. Besides, a teachingcomparative experiment is conducted between two classes: one is taught in traditionalreading teaching method, while the other is taught in reading teaching method based on cognitive context.Through the empirical study, the author tries to demonstrate the positive role ofcognitive conte’xt in improving students reading ability. The following are a summaryof major findings:(1) Application of cognitive context can be conducted through thereading strategies implemented with cognitive context and three-stage readingteachig modes.(2) With their teach’ners guidance, students are able to appropriatelyselect and construct their own cognitive contexts and they are likely to achieveoptimal relevance and better reading effects.At last, the author offers some suggestions concerned about reading teaching.