Abstract

Reading is one of the important and basic skills for foreign language learners, and reading comprehension is a significant component of NMET. However, in recent years, students’ performances in NMET were still far from satisfaction. The present paper is an empirical research on the application of relevance theory to English reading teaching. The subjects were 120 grade two students from a senior high school and the instruments included two tests and a questionnaire. A detailed analysis of the quantitative data by SPSS18.0 has yielded the findings as follows: (1) Compared statistics reveal that relevance theoretical reading model is effective in helping students’ text understanding. (2) According to the analysis of the statistics, relevance theory makes great effects on the improvement of students’ reading ability, especially their ability to grasp the main idea of a text and pragmatic inference ability. (3) Significant differences were found to exist between good and poor readers in ten aspects such as main idea prediction, background information utilization and pragmatic inference. 

Key words: relevance theory; reading comprehension; reading teaching; empirical study

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-1

1.1 Background of the Study-1

1.2 Research Motivation and Objectives-1

1.3 Organization of the Thesis-2

2 Literature Review-2

2.1 Reading Comprehension-2

2.2 Previous Studies-3

2.3 Perspective of this Study-3

3 Research Methodology-5

3.1 Research Questions-5

3.2 Research Design-5

3.3 Research Method-6

3.4 Research Procedures-7

3.5 Reading Strategies based on Relevance Theory-7

4 Data Collection and Discussion-9

4.1 Data Collection and Discussion of the Two Tests-9

4.2 Promotion of Reading Ability-10

4.3 Data Collection and Discussion of the Questionnaire-12

5 Conclusion-13

5.1 Major Findings of the Research-14

5.2 Limitations of the Study-15

5.3 Implications for Reading Teaching-15

5.4 Suggestions for Future Study-15

References-16

Appendix I-16

Appendix II-16