review范文

review范文篇一

critical review范文

Introduction

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl tells the very personal story of his experience as a prisoner in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. He presents this story in the form of an essay in which he shares his arguments and analysis as a doctor and psychologist as well as a former prisoner. This paper will review Frankl’s story as well as his main arguments, and will evaluate the quality of Frankl’s writing and focus on any areas of weakness within the story.

Summary

This section contains a summary of Man's Search. Frankl begins his book by stating that his purpose in writing the book is not to present facts and details of the Holocaust, but to provide a personal account of the everyday life of a prisoner living in a concentration camp. He states, “This tale is not concerned with the great horrors, which have already been described often enough (though less often believed), but…it will try to answer this question: How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?” (21). Frankl then goes on to describe the three stages of a prisoner’s psychological reactions to being held captive in a concentration camp.

The first phase, which occurs just after the prisoner is admitted to the camp, is shock. The second phase, occurring once the prisoner has fallen into a routine within the camp, is one of apathy, or “the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not anymore” (42). The third phase, which occurs after the prisoner has been liberated from the camp, is a period of “depersonalization”, in which “everything appears unreal, unlikely, as in a dream” (110). In this phase, released prisoners also feel a sense of “bitterness and disillusionment” when returning to their former lives (113). Frankl describes each of these phases using psychological theory and provides personal experiences to exemplify each of the stages.

Author’s Arguments

As described above, Frankl’s main purpose for writing this book is to present and analyze the average prisoner’s psychological reactions to the everyday life of a concentration camp. His three main arguments are his presentation and analysis of each of the psychological stages that the average concentration camp prisoner experiences: shock, apathy and depersonalization. He bases his analyses of each of these stages on the actions of the prisoners and his own personal thoughts and reactions as he experienced life in a concentration camp.

For example, Frankl argues that the second phase of apathy forces “the prisoner’s life down to a primitive level” (47) in which “all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one’s own life and that of the other fellow” (47). He bases this theory on events he witnessed while living in the camp himself, and states, “It was natural that the desire for food was the major primitive instinct around which mental life centered. Let us observe the majority of prisoners when they happened to work near each other and were, for once, not closely watched. They would immediately start discussing food” (48). Frankl continuously uses examples from his experiences in the concentration camp to illustrate and strengthen his psychological arguments throughout the text.

Evaluation

This section contains an evaluation of Frankl’s book. Firstly, the author is a survivor of the Holocaust and was a prisoner of a concentration camp himself, which gives him the personal insight to be able to comment on the psychological conditions of an average prisoner. However, this also creates a bias and because of his personal experience, he is unable to be entirely objective in writing his analysis. Frankl acknowledges this bias in the beginning of his book, by stating, “Only the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective, his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty of a book of this kind” (24-25). Although he is aware of this bias, it creates a partiality that will sway the readers throughout his story and it serves as a minor weakness in his writing style.

A second weakness in Frankl’s writing is in the assumptions he sometimes makes to prove his point. He makes overarching generalizations several times in his book, making statements that, although may have been true for himself and those around him, might not have been true for every prisoner in every concentration camp during the Holocaust. For example, in one instance, he says, “The prisoner of Auschwitz , in the first phase of shock, did not fe

ar death” (37). It is very bold to say that no prisoner of Auschwitz, one of the most well-known and deadly concentration camps of the Holocaust, did not fear death, as death was all around them and was a very real threat in their daily lives. Although he might have not feared death during his phase of shock, it is impossible for him to guarantee that no prisoner was at all fearful of death in this first psychological phase, and for him to make overarching assumptions like this is a weakness to the overall quality of his book.

Finally, Frankl sometimes becomes too technical and verbose in his writing style, which makes it very hard for the average reader to understand. One example of this is as follows. Frankl states, “I remember an incident when there was an occasion for psychotherapeutic work on the inmates of a whole hut, due to an intensification of their receptiveness because of a certain external situation” (102). This sentence, which is overly wordy and complicated, makes it difficult for the average reader to understand exactly what he is saying. A reader can easily get frustrated when trying to decipher the author’s meaning due to overly complicated language, and this is a third weakness of Frankl’s writing.

Conclusion

This critical review has evaluated the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. The psychological theories that Frankl presents are very interesting and he does a good job of illustrating these theories with his own personal experiences. However, his writing is weakened by the presence of bias, the overarching assumptions he occasionally makes, and his sometimes overly technical and verbose language.

review范文篇二

Literature Review范例

Literature Review

In this thesis, I will study the characteristics of the conversational mechanism of repair in Chinese conversational discourse. To that end, it is necessary to conduct a review of the relevant literature on conversational repair. I shall start with an elaboration of the notion of “repair”, going on to researches into the organization of conversational repair and conclude with the interdisciplinary and multi-linguistic application of “repair” research.{review范文}.

1. From Correction to Repair

As a relatively new field in conversation analysis (CA), the proper study of the conversational phenomenon of repair didn‟t start until the publication of Schegloff et al‟s seminal paper in 1977. Before that, there were only some sporadic discussions of the phenomenon under such generic headings as tongue slips (Laver 1973, see Schegloff 1977) and error correction (Jefferson 1975, see Schegloff 1977). As a still often-used term, “correction”, “commonly understood to refer to the replacement of an „error‟ or „mistake‟ by what is „correct‟” (Schegloff 1977: 363), not only limits research to a minority of the natural occurrences of repair but also misleads researchers about the nature of the trouble-sources.

The shift of focus was led by Schegloff et al (1977), whose study was an empirically based effort to examine the organization of repair as a set of ordered, but not equal possibilities. The phenomenon of correction was therefore proven part of a much wider picture, i.e. repair and the scope of discussion was greatly expanded from the mere correcting of some “hearable [usually linguistic] errors” (1977: 363) to all possible “practices for dealing with problems or troubles in speaking, hearing, and understanding the talk in conversation” (2000: 207), a definition given by Schegloff himself some 20 years later. In deed, potential trouble-sources in conversation include not only correction of information, but also and more importantly replacement of inappropriate items or ambiguous anaphors, word search and clarification of the pragmatic function/understanding of a previous turn. These and many other

occurrences may only be subsumed under the more general scope of repair. Incidentally, correction may not always be categorized under repair either, as is exemplified by the disagreement over the so-called “embedded correction” (Jefferson 1987) – basically a covert form of other-correction – which Schegloff (2000) ruled out as not constituting a kind of repair. Equally important as the expansion in the scope of research was the change in the view of the trouble-sources that directly occasion the repair. According to Schegloff et al (1977), trouble-sources are not self-evident but determined interactively by participants. In other words, all the segments in an utterance is, in theory, potential trouble-sources and often the existence of a trouble-source can only be evidenced by the actual mobilization of the practice of repair on the part of either the hearer or the speaker (and sometimes both). It is worth noting that just as the status of a trouble-source is an uncertainty to be interactively determined, the actual need and proper protocol of its repair is not any more certain. This dynamic and interactive view of repair has proven rewarding in terms of revealing not only its own mechanism but also other cognitive, social and psychological aspects of conversational discourse, as may be interestingly explained by such everyday wisdom: you don‟t know something‟s at work until it goes wrong.

2. The organization of repair

Many studies have been carried out with regard to the various dimensions of conversational repair itself, e.g. its classification, sites, forms and causes.{review范文}.

Schegloff et al (1977) classified four interactional types of repair according to the subject(s) of initiation/repair, namely self/other-initiated self/other repair. This classification has been adopted by many researchers later, making it easier to tackle conversational data. Yet Geluykens (1994: 56) suggests, rightly I think, that this classification is in need of refinement as it is not always possible to draw a sharp boundary between self and other initiation. He found a sort of other-prompted self-initiation, which underlines the interactive aspect of conversational discourse.

Along with the interactional four-type classification, Schegloff et al (1977)

proposed the unequal distribution of the four types. To be more exact, self-repair is preferred to other-repair and self-initiation to other-initiation. It follows that the most favored type is self-initiated self-repair. Their claim was put forward with no statistical evidence so later researchers have discussed their empirical findings with reference to either or both of the two preferences. Many studies, including some based on data in languages other than English, are in support of the observation that self-repair is preferred, e.g. Geluykens (1994) and Ma (2007). Yet some remain doubtful as to the preference of self-initiation over other-initiation, e.g. Gaskell (1980), Schwartz (1980) and Gass & Varonis (1985) (see Wang 2007).

A strong objection to the preference of self-correction was put forward by Norrick (1991, see Jiang & Li 2003), whose data was collected from conversation in parent-child, teacher-student and NS-NNS contexts. After examining the organization of corrective exchanges in these contexts, he contended that the party abler to perform the correction – not necessarily the speaker – does it. Further, he dismissed the alleged preference as a sub-case which is only possible between adult native speakers, whose ability of repair is approximately equal. In other words, the absence of such preference is the norm while the preference is a special case. Interestingly, Schegloff et al (1977) has also observed that other-correction “seems to be not as infrequent” and “appears to be one vehicle for socialization” in those contexts where someone not-yet-competent in a certain domain – be it language facility or background information – is involved (381). However, they further argued that this exception to the infrequency of other-correction is only a transitional stage and will be superseded by the preference of self-correction eventually. Joining in the heated discussion are Jiang & Li (2003), who also questioned the validity of Schegloff‟s claim about the preference for self-repair. They offered as proof the work of Norrick (1991) and Zhao (1996). The latter, on the basis of data obtained in academic seminars, of which other-repair takes up a remarkable proportion, suggested that the option of self- or other-repair should take into account of the context, including the content of conversation and the respective social status of the participants (Jiang & Li 2003: 42). In their own survey, Jiang & Li (2003) calculated the frequencies of repair in two

categories and found the preference of self-repair only existent in the category that included clearing up misunderstandings, word search or self-editing while in the correction of real errors, other-repair enjoys a bigger percentage of 60%. Therefore they blamed the mystery of the preference on the overly broad definition of repair put forward by Schegloff et al.

Besides the interactional four-type classification, repair has been classified by other ways. In terms of the kind of trouble-spot being repaired, Levelt (1989, see Geluykens 1994:20) distinguishes between E[rror]-repair and A[ppropriateness]-repair. Considering the temporal aspect of repair, there are immediate repairs and delayed repairs (Geluykens 1994: 22).

There has also been in-depth discussion on the sites, or what is called the sequential environment for repair initiation and reparans (the repairing segment). A usual way of referring to the position of repair initiation is by reference to the turn where the trouble-source occurs. Schegloff et al (1977) found self-initiation mainly in three positions, namely the same turn as the trouble-source, the same turn‟s transition place and the third-turn to the trouble-source turn; other-initiation, on the other hand, was found mainly in the next turn (to the trouble-source turn). Levinson (1983, see Geluykens 1994) identified four similar opportunities, which are ordered with decreasing preference and most often used by either self- or other-initiation.

In particular, Schegloff (2000) elaborated the locus of other-initiation (OI) that occurs in positions other than the turn following the trouble-source turn. He suggested several interactional constraints that may be accountable for these somewhat deviant OIs, constraints related to the organization of repair, of turns or of turn-taking. In addition, he observed occasional delays in OIs which implies the speaker‟s intention of “setting aside the understanding problem” (233) or assessing it later. This observation was of great relevance to the study of Wong, who examined a form of “delayed next turn repair initiation” in N-NN English conversation and proposed that it might be accounted by the differences between native and non-native participants in their ways of social interaction – more specifically, in the use of certain tokens and sequential organization in conversation.

From the comparison between Schegloff (2000) and Wong (2000), it seems that the instantaneity and complexity of conversation spell danger for hasty generalization and due attention should be paid to minute differentiation. A case in point may be found in Schegloff (1997)‟s distinction between “third turn repair” and “third position repair”, both of which occupies as a rule the turn subsequent to the turn following the trouble-source turn, hence “third”. Yet a closer look with a focus on sequential relevance will clear up the confusion of the two. While “third position repair” is usually self-repair in response to other-initiation in the second turn, “third turn repair” is a kind of self-initiated self-repair separated from the trouble-source turn only by a not full-fledged turn of acknowledgement or irrelevant interpolation.

Another dimension of conversational repair, i.e. its forms, has also received considerable academic attention. Firstly, on the various forms of initiation, Schegloff (1979) distinguished between lexical and non-lexical initiation; Kuang (2001) specified five forms of repair initiation with decreasing extent of repetition of the trouble-source turn; Drew (1997) developed a sequential analysis of the use of „open‟ initiators (such as “pardon?”, “sorry?” and “what?”), in which specific forms of initiation are correlated with specific types of trouble sources.

Secondly, the forms of the reparans (the repairing utterance) prove a complex issue, as researchers have found an undeniable relation between repair and syntax. For one thing, the four forms taken by same-turn reparans – recycling, replacing, inserting and restarting (Schegloff 1979) may change the syntactic structure of the trouble-source turn. As it is, repair “can [drastically] change the syntactic form by subsuming, under another „frame‟ sentence, the whole sentence being said or starting to be said” (Schegloff 1979: 280). This interaction between repair and syntax is partly responsible for the confusion of repair with other constructions, e.g. dislocations. In this interesting aspect, Geluykens (1994) explored intensively the mechanism of right dislocation (RD), which often overlaps with anaphoric repair because of their similarity in syntactic characteristics, semantic relations and functions. Ma (2006) categorized RDs with repairing function in Chinese discourse (including a drama script) into the four interactional types of repair. It is not easy to judge whether a RD

review范文篇三

Literature Review 范例

A Literature Review of An Empirical Study of

Multimodal Teaching Model in

Middle School English Listening Teaching in a Multimedia Context

In recent years, the theories of multimodal discourse and multimodality have gained many scholars’ attention. Many researchers study them and try to apply multimodal teaching to middle schools’ teaching. And nowadays, many famous language scholars are trying their best to do the empirical study on the multimodal teaching.

As a matter of fact, many noted researchers have made a brief definition of multimodality. “Multimodality means the combination of different semiotic modes---for example, language and music---in a communicative artifact or event” (Kress & Leeuwen 1996: 281). “Multimodality refers to the diverse ways in which a number of distinct semiotic resource system are both codeployed and cocontextualized in the making of a text-specific meaning” (Baldry & Thibault 2006:

21).

Since the 1990s of last century, the multimodal teaching approach has drawn the researchers’ and the teachers’ attention in abroad. As a matter of fact, the term “multimodal” was put forward by the New London Group in 1990, and it was the first time for people to hear this term. Then a book called Reading Image which systematically established the analysis model of social semiotic multimode (Kress & Leeuwen 1996: 68). In this book, it is first time to explain the grammar designed by vision systematically and survey the way that the pictures transmit the meaning. The author also quoted many examples to explain, such as child drawing, text-cut, camera pictures, and so on. This book supplies a very valuable theoretical instrument.

The development of the research of the multimodal discourse and text gives a strong supporting for the evolution of multimodal teaching. Unsworth posed the

foundational theoretical knowledge of important textbook. He believed the teacher should have the knowledge of vision and discourse grammar and the ability of the computer assisted learning which can meet the requirements of teaching with the newly-minted electronic texts and images (Unsworth 2001). The book Perspectives on Multimodality which published in 2004 gave a guide to the multimodal research and the construction of the multimodal theory (Ventola & Charles 2004). In this book, the author carefully explained the multimodal discourse theory and the methodological problem, such as the levels of the modes, the source of the mode symbols, and the annotation of the database of six multimodal discourses. In another book, The Multimodal Discourse Analysis which was mainly edited by Halloran in 2004, the author collected the leading-edge research that is the production of multimodal text and discourse through two or even more models of symbolic communication and connection, such as the language, dynamic and static visual images, architecture and three-dimensional bodies (Halloran 2004). They are a series of case studies which use the framework of systemic-functional grammar to research how the meaning produces.

From what have been mentioned above, the research on multimodality indicates a great increasing in abroad. There are many well-known researchers study multimodality and multimodal teaching. Moreover, the attempts to the application of multimodality to education have been carried out more systematically and scientifically.

Scholars in China also did many experiments and researches in recent years. The introducer of domestic multimodality theory, Professor Gu Yueguo, has constructed a multimodal language database in 1993. In his point of view, “multimodality” is based on 20 sense organs that human owns. In the face to face communication, the facial expression, expression in eyes, gesture, posture, body language and clothes are likely revealed the message. During the teaching, the teachers try their best to mobilize all of the students’ sense organs to experience the teaching activities, and interact with the teachers (顾曰国 2007: 3-12). Professor Hu Zhuanglin in Peking University pointed

out that people can draw the support from various ways and modalities to exchange and deal with various messages when they are interacting with others. This is meaning making and delivering (胡壮麟 2006: 1-10). As the matter of fact, language is multimodal. The famous scholar Zhang Delu mentioned that multimodal communication can make the listeners receive message by various ways, and it makes listeners understand and remember things easier than single- mode in Preliminary Investigation into the Concept of Design and the Selection of Modalities in Multimodal Foreign Language Teaching (张德禄 2010: 48-53). Long Feiyu and Zhao Pu believed that different kinds of modality can converse into others reciprocally, so that multimodal teaching has a great effect on the language learning (龙飞宇 赵璞 2009: 58-62).

Based on the theories of multimodal teaching, Zeng Qinmin conducted an experiment and a survey to explore the efficacy of this mode in the video-aural-oral course. Through the results of the test, she found that multimodal teaching is proved to be effective in improving students’ listening and speaking skills as well as their ability to do autonomous listening tasks, and that teaching mode also had a positive impact on the students’ attitudes towards English study (曾庆敏 2011: 72-76). Liu Rongjun conducted a teaching test in Beijing University of Technology, which based on the impact of single-mode and multimodal listening teaching under different speed levels on listening comprehension and the output of students of different levels. Then she analyzed the results of the test, and she found that multimodal teaching has an obvious effect on the development of listening ability (刘荣君 2011: 133-135). Xie Jingxian and Dong Jianqiao made an analysis on teaching college English listening that based on multimedia and multimodal teaching and learning. In this paper, they gave the definition of “listening” first, and then they analyzed how to choose the listening materials and how to design the listening tasks under a multimedia and multimodal context (谢竞贤 董剑桥 2010: 9-13).

This research first applies multimodal teaching model to middle school English listening teaching in a multimedia context, and the author conducts a two months’ teaching experiment in Hefei No. 45 Middle School so that to get convinced results. This research may not only provide a new teaching model for some English teachers

to teach English listening better, but also to teach English speaking, reading and writing preferably.

Bibliography

[1]Baldry, A. & P. J. Thibault. 2006. Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis: A

Multimodal Toolkit and Course book [M], London: Equinox Publishing

Limited.

[2]Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of

Language and Meaning [M], London: Edward Arnold.

[3]Halloran, K. 2004. Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic-Functional

Perspectives [M], London: Continuum.

[4]Kress, G. & T. V. Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Image: The Grammar of Visual Design

[M], London: Arnold.

[5]Unsworth, L. 2001. Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum: Changing

Contexts of Text and Image in Classroom Practice [M], Buckingham, UK:

Open University Press.

[6]Ventola, E. & C. Charles. 2004. Perspectives on Multimodality [M], London:

Oxford University Press.{review范文}.

[7]顾曰国，2007，多媒体、多模态学习剖析[J]。外语电化教学 (2) ：3-12。

[8]胡壮麟，2007，社会符号学研究中的多模态化[J]。外语教学与研究 (1) ：1-10。

[9]刘荣君，2011，多媒体条件下的单模态与多模态听力效果初探[J]。南昌教育

学院学报 (10) ：133-135。

[10]龙宇飞、赵璞，2009，大学英语听力教学中元认知策略与多模态交互研究[J]。

外语电化教学 (4) ：58-62。

[11]谢竞贤、董剑桥，2010，论多媒体与多模态下的大学英语听力教学[J]。外语

电化教学 (6) ：62-65。

[12]张德禄，2010，多模态外语教学的设计与模态调用初探[J]。中国外语 (3) ：

48-53。

[13]曾庆敏，2011，多模态视听说教学模式对听说能力发展的有效性研究[J]。解

放军外国语学院学报 (6) ：72-76。

review范文篇四

论文Literary Review写法

Literary Review

2.1 Domestic Research

Xy is seldom found in the researches at home. There are, however, some researches that have given a brief mention of xy. A1, in his study of yyy, mentions xy by saying that…1 ; A2 also discusses xy when he analysed zzz, 2.

Xy has been a hot topic in physical field. It is estimated that these researches amount to 500 essays or books that give great attention to it3. These studies of xy are generally classified 3 categories, which are labeled as T1(Chemical Approach), T2(Biological perspective) and T3 (Physical Technique). For T1, A3 is mostly known for his concepts about…4; in terms of T2, the idea of …raised by A4 is very typical5; as far as T3 is concerned, A5 has proposed that ….6

2.2.International Research

Unlike the domestic researches, the international academic circle are reasonably interested in the study of XY. Few as they are, these studies have produced significant impact on….One of the most influential studies is completed by F1 in his book Structure of Xy7 , where he puts forward that…; another well-known scientist from Biology Department in Harvard University, F2, who says that….8

Chronologically speaking, the research of xy may be divided into 4 types. From 1900 to 1940, the study of xy mainly focused on the aspect of a, which is often called Ax; the study of xy that emphasized the aspect of b started from 1941 to 1970, which is usually known as Bx; the years from 1971 to 1990 witnessed the research shifted from Bx to Cx, …; then came the age of Dx from 1991 to present.

2.3

From the above demonstration of previous researches, we may find / it is found that the domestic researches are inadequate in…For example,

The international studies of xy, although they are quite influential in…., prove to be un-systematic. The present thesis mainly contribute to (1) a systematic study of xy in terms of …; (2) adequate study of xy in …, which fills the void of …

1

2 A1, “desst, ahha, sss,”, in The Journal of Beijing University, 2004, 5, p.125. A2, The making of Carbon Material, Beijing: China Commercial Press, 2010, p.567. 3 4 5 6 7 8

review范文篇五

英语作文-a movie review

"District 9" is a terrific science-fiction film that works as political commentary, blood-splattering action flick and sneaky-funny comedy. It gets you, in its opening seconds, and won't let go until its final moments, when it's transformed into a most unlikely buddy picture. And then you will hope for a sequel which is called "District 10", perhaps.

Twenty years ago, a gigantic UFO stopped over the city of Johannesburg, carrying malnourished and sick aliens named “prawn”. Unable to operate the ship any more, the aliens were allowed to inhabit the area called District 9 in the city.

Most people look upon them with distaste. The prawns are ugly, violent, and root around in the trash. They love to eat cat food.

By now, the people of Jo'burg want them out of their city, so a new township is built for them far away: District 10.

Moving is a job for Multinational United (MNU), a private contractor with ruthless mercenaries and much weaponry. Heading the program, though, is a commis named Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley).{review范文}.

Employed by MNU, he is assigned the task of expelling the aliens into a more remote area. He is accidentally exposed to an alien’s liquid during the operation and begins to mutate into the species in District 9.

The style of the movie very much resembles a documentary with interviews and TV footage. Actually, this is the films charm. During some scenes, I was even under the delusion that such chaos might have occurred on Earth, or could happen in real life.

At the same time, the movie manages to surprise you with an original screenplay and leaves you with a lot to ponder. As many of us have been brainwashed by Hollywood, you can only expect a 'humans vs. aliens' movie to be full of action and scattered plot. But this film awakes us from the introspection of human sin and wrongdoing, if the inhabitants in the slum were not aliens but real people, are we sure the same thing could not happen today? Isn't it a reflection of what the powerful do to the disadvantaged in the world today? As doubts fulling with my heads, I even began to wonder which side I should root for during the screening.

review范文篇六

Literature Review(样本)

Literature Review

1. The importance of reading in English learning{review范文}.

In language learning, reading is regarded as a major source of input, and for many EFL learners it is the most important skill in an academic context （Grabe 1991). In addition, reading can help learners extend their general knowledge of the world. In the context of China, as Chinese EFL learners are learning the target language in an acquisition-poor environment, they need all the more to depend on reading for language and culture immersion. And, what is more, there is another necessity to Chinese EFL learners—reading for examinations (Zhou 2003). It is obvious that reading makes up a large proportion of the total scores in important English Proficiency Tests at various levels such as Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), International English Language Testing System (IELTS), College English Test Band 4 (CET-4), College English Test Band 6 (CET-6), Test for English Majors Band 4 (TEM-4), Test for English Majors Band 8 (TEM-8) (Pu 2006). Therefore, reading is considered an essential and prerequisite ability on the part of English majors.

2. The reading process

2.1 The nature of reading

Reading comprehension begins at the smallest and simplest language units and each single word, sentence and passage carries its own meaning independently which has no direct link with the reader (Chomsky cited in Zhang & Guo 2005). It is the process of acquiring information from a written or printed text. So to read a text successfully is to know the meaning of the text. (Eskey 2002, cited in Yu 2005).

Another view about reading is that reading is a “psycholinguistic guessing game” (Goodman 1967, cited in Zhang 2006) during which the reader can make predictions about the content of a passage according to the textual clues, his prior knowledge and

experience. If his predictions are confirmed, the reader continues, otherwise, he revises those predictions (Goodman 1967; Smith 1971, cited in Silberstein 2002: 6).

From this perspective, reading can be taken as an interactive activity (Eskey 1988; Grabe 1993, cited in Hedge 2002: 188) which can be understood to be a complex cognitive process in which the reader and the text interact to (re)create meaningful discourse (Silberstein 2002: x). It is in at least two ways. Firstly, the various processes involved in reading are carried out simultaneously. Secondly, it is interactive in the sense that linguistic information from the text interacts with information activated by the reader from his long-term memory, as background knowledge (Grabe & Stoller 2005: 18). At this point, reading can also be described as a kind of dialogue between the reader and the text, or even between the reader and the author (Widdowson 1979a, cited in Hedge 2002: 188).

Meanwhile, reading is a complex process. It involves processing ideas generated by others that are transmitted through language and involves highly complex cognitive processing operations (Nunan 1999, cited in Yu 2005). And many processing skills are coordinated in very efficient combinations (Grabe & Stoller 2005: 4).

Furthermore, reading is a purposeful process. We can divide the purpose into different categories: reading for pleasure or reading for information in order to find out something or do something with the information you get (Grellet 2000: 4): to get information, to response to curiosity about a topic; to follow instructions to perform a task; for pleasure, amusement, and personal enjoyment; to keep in touch with friends and colleagues; to know what is happening in the world; and to find out when and where things are (Rivers and Temperley1978: 187, cited in Hedge 2002: 195).

Besides these, reading is a critical process. Critical reading views reading as a social engagement (Kress 1985, cited in Hedge 2002: 197). Form this viewpoint, texts are organized in certain ways by writers to shape the perceptions of readers towards acceptance of the underlying ideology of the text (Hedge 2002: 197). So it is the process for the readers to evaluate the writers‟ attitudes or viewpoints.

2.2 Three components of reading

2.2.1 Language competence

Many researchers have pointed out that L2 learners must reach a certain level of second language competence before they can smoothly read in the target language (see Grabe & Stoller 2005). An efficient reader can recognize and decode the words, grammatical structures and other linguistic features quickly, accurately, and automatically.

Obviously, sometimes second language readers have difficulties in processing texts which contain unfamiliar elements of the English language such as the cohesive devices (Hedge 2002: 192). Just as Berman (1984, cited in Hedge 2002: 193) suggests, deletion, another cohesive device, can make a text „opaque‟ to the reader. It seems to confirm the hypothesis that foreign language readers are partly dependent on processing syntactic structures successfully to get access to meaning (Hedge 2002: 193).

Another major difficulty lies in vocabulary. Language learners experience difficulty with vocabulary, but the degree of difficulty varies with the demands of the text, the prior knowledge of the reader, the degree of automaticity a learner has achieved in general word recognition, any specialist lexical knowledge a student might have, and the learner‟s first language (Hedge 2002: 193).

2.2.2 Background knowledge

Background knowledge is one‟s previously acquired comprehensive knowledge or world knowledge and one‟s special knowledge on certain subjects (Zhang & Guo 2005). In language learning, especially for reading comprehension, the function of background knowledge in reading comprehension is formularized as schema theory (Bartlett 1932; Rumelhart & Ortony 1977; Rumelhart 1980, cited in Zhang 2006). The reader begins with the perception of graphic cues, but once these are recognized as familiar, schemata derived from both linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world in general are brought into play (Parry 1987: 61, cited in Qian 1997). So words in texts function as signs within a culture-bound system, and familiar cultural schemata can sometimes be more powerful than lexical knowledge (Swaffar 1988:

123). If the texts are products of an unfamiliar culture, some learners‟ reading problems may be caused by insufficient background knowledge, and a particular schemata fails to exist for them because this schemata is specific to a given culture and is not part of their own background (Carrell 1988: 245, cited in Qian 1997).

Therefore, comprehending a text is described as an interactive process between the reader‟s background knowledge and the text (Qian 1997), but it depends largely on the reader rather than on the text (Carrell 1984: 333; Swaffar 1988: 123, cited in Qian 1997). The reason is that any text, either spoken or written, doesn‟t by itself carry meaning and what a text provides is only the directions as to how a reader should retrieve or construct meaning from previously acquired knowledge which is the reader‟s background knowledge (Zhang & Guo 2005).

There are two basic types of schemata: formal schemata and content schemata. Formal schemata, often known as textual schemata, consists of knowledge of different text types, genres, and the understanding that different types of texts use text organization, language structures, vocabulary, grammar, level of formality/register differently. If ESL readers possess the appropriate formal schemata against which they process the discourse type of the text and if they utilize that formal schemata to organize their recall protocols, they will retrieve more information (Carrell 1984: 460, cited in Hedge 2002:192). Therefore, the readers‟ background knowledge and prior experience with textual organization can facilitate reading comprehension (Pu 2006).Content schemata involves a reader‟s existent knowledge about certain topics and his general world knowledge. The reader‟s content schemata functions while he is trying to comprehend subject-specific and culture-specific texts.

2.2.3 Reading strategies

Reading strategies are defined as the mental operations involved when readers approach a text effectively and make sense of what they are reading (Barnett 1988, cited in Pani 2006). These strategies consist of cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. William Grabe (1991: 379, cited in Qian 1997) includes them into six categories:

(1) Automatic recognition skills

(2) Vocabulary and structure knowledge

(3) Formal discourse structure knowledge

(4) Content/world background knowledge

(5) Synthesis and evaluation skills

(6) Metacognitive knowledge and monitoring skills

2.2.3.1 Cognitive strategies in reading

Cognitive strategies are described as mental processes directly concerned with the processing of information in order to learn, that is for obtaining, storage, retrieval or use of information (Williams & Burden 2000: 148). They are involved in the analysis, synthesis, or transformation of learning materials (Ellis2000: 77). Furthermore, these strategies enable readers to deal with the information presented in tasks and materials by working on it in different ways (Hedge 2002: 77-78).

Mikulecky (1990: 25-26) has listed categories 24 reading strategies which an efficient reader must acquire:

1. Automatic decoding

2. Previewing and predicting

3. Specifying purpose

4. Identifying genre

5. Questioning

6. Scanning

7. Recognizing topics

8. Classification of ideas into main topics and details

9. Locating topic sentence

10. Stating the main idea of a sentence, paragraph or passage

11. Recognizing patterns of relationships

12. Identifying and using words which signal the patterns of relationships

13. Inferring the main idea, using patterns and other clues

14. Recognizing and using pronouns, referents, and other lexical equivalents as clues