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roach during its application?
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

This part mainly introduces some theories of reading, ge nre, genre analysis,genre-based teaching approach, as well as action research. The features and models ofimportant genres are also included in this part, which can be a guide to the teachingprocess in the two rounds of action research of this study.

2.1 Reading
Reading plays an important role in language use, and it is a basic way to acquireknowledge and information, as well as im prove readers’ language applicationcompetence. This part m ainly demonstrates the nature of read ing, and three basicmodels in reading teaching.Scholars from all over the world have di stributed themselves to studying thenature of reading th roughout history. Reading is a com plex cognitive andpsychological process, in which decoding skills, text structure knowledge, schemaknowledge, processing strategies and other s ub-components interact to help readersconstruct meaning from the text (Carrel, 1985; Grabe, 1991). In other words, readingis an active communication activity, in which readers communicate and analyze theinformation from the content and structure, those keys lied in the words of the passage.During this process, readers actively take pa rt in the construction of the passage withthe purpose of solving problem s. Furthermore, readers not only have to detect thehidden answers with the help of concrete context and information, but also need tolink their background knowledge about the cu lture, the environm ental and socialfactors to the passage closely.Great emphasis has been put on English r eading nowadays, so in the next part,the researcher will have a br ief introduction of the basic reading models in teachingthat have been developed so far.
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2.2 Genre Theory and Its Related Studies
Because of the im portant roles of reading in language acquis ition, it h asattracted many experts’ and scholars’ attention throughout the world. During the past20 years, linguists have taken great interest in the theory of genre and genre analysis,and tried to apply it into English reading class. As a consequence, this part intends togive a brief introduction of the genre theo ry and its related studies based on theresearches done by the scholars.There is no unified definition of genre in linguistics up to now. Most linguistsquote the definition of genre defined by Martin and Swales when they talk abou t it.Miller (1984), on behalf of the Ne w Rhetoric, hypothesized genre as a kind of socialbehavior, aiming at helping students to unde rstand how to participate in the socialcommunities. The best understanding of genre is not through the text rules of differenttext types, but with the actions in response to the soci al context. Genres are betterunderstood than the text types, because th ey are subject to th e regularities of aparticular pattern.Qin (2002) in China has divided genre into two types according to its definition.One is the Swalesian S chool represented by Swales, the other one is the AustralianSchool represented by Martin.Martin (1984) defined genre as “a stag ed, goal-oriented, purposeful activity inwhich speakers engage as members of our culture” (p. 117). That is to say, genre is akind of communicative process, which is oriented by communicative purpose. Whenlanguage is used to accomplish goals, genres are the methods to get things done. T