英语论文网

hat, “reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game” (Goodman, 1967: 168). And “in a reading process, the reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by the writer as a graphic display” (Goodman, 1973: 135). Psycholinguists hold that, in reading process, a reader does not need all the language cues, he can decode, through his psycholinguistic processing, the message in the text, and share much of the information that the writer intends to convey. Smith states that, “reading actually depends as little as possible on using the eyes. As we become fluent readers, we learn to rely more on what we already know, on what is behind the eyeballs, and less on the print on the page in front of us” (Smith, 1971: 131). In this view, the non-linguistic knowledge of the target language such as the cultural background knowledge plays a more important role than the linguistic knowledge in English reading comprehension. A reader plays an active role in a reading comprehension process. He comprehends the text, in a large part, depending on his stored background knowledge. 1.2 Theory of communicative approach The communicative approach holds that language is a means of communication. One of their representatives Littlewood (1981) states that: The primary goal of most foreign language learning is to develop the ability to use real and appropriate language to communicate and interact with others, and the goal of foreign language teaching is to extend the range of communicative situation in which the learners can perform with focus on meaning without being hindered by the attention he must pay to linguistic form (littlewood, 1981: 253). In the communicative teaching model, class is students-centered. The classroom activities are interactive and performed between students and the teacher or among the students. A reader or listener must work out what message or meaning the writer or speaker really wants to convey. Unlike psycholinguistic perspective, communicative approach holds that, readers should also depend on the linguistic knowledge, not just on the non-linguistic knowledge, to decode the meaning of the text. The verbal forms of language for instance, a talk, a conversation and an interview etc. are for communication. In the same way, the written forms of language, i.e. the print materials are also for communication. A writer conveys his message or meaning through the print linguistic forms. And the reader tries to get out of the message or meaning the writer puts into the text. The relationship between a writer and a reader may be represented in this simple flow chart: Writer → Text or discourse (with message or meaning) ← Reader This flow chart clearly shows an interaction between the reader and the writer in reading comprehension. 2. Causes of the communicative obstacles English is a totally different language from Chinese. Language is a carrier of culture; it reflects culture and is a part of culture. Chinese students usually have difficulty in English reading. The factors causing the difficulty or obstacles exist in both the linguistic level such as lexical, syntactical and semantic differences and the non-linguistic level such as thinking model and cultural background differences. 2.1 Linguistic level English is a quite different language from Chinese in the linguistic level. The lexical, syntactic, semantic and anaphoric expression differences often cause communicative obstacles the English readin