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The problems in reading comprehension have their own features. That is to say, different period has different problems. As language is the carrier of culture, there must be a lot of culture barriers in reading comprehending. The purpose of this paper is trying to find out the effect of reading comprehension caused by cultural factors and the author also promoted some solutions to solve it.
 
II. Cultural Factors in Reading Comprehension
Reading is one of the most important steps in language learning. Communication and understanding involve more than mere linguistic decoding. It is an interaction of the reader and the author. We should know some cultural knowledge on target language, which can help us get the interaction. Because language is a carrier of culture and at the same time is the component of culture. “Each step of discourse comprehension is closely linked with readers’ cultural background knowledge” (Anderson, 1997). Nunan (1991) had confirmed by some related research that the problems in reading comprehension are seemingly language problems, but the limitation of cultural background knowledge.
Each nation has its own geographical conditions and historical environment. Therefore, for different things and experiences, each nation has different coding specifications. A nation gets its special religiousness, worship and taboo mentality from the difference of religious belief. And a lot of unique allusions and legends were produced in the special historical process of a nation.
2.1 Social and Historical Factors
Social and historical culture refers to the culture that is formed with the development of certain historical and social heritage that usually varies from nation to nation. Both English and Chinese have a long history of language development. Many names of places and persons are connected with culture. For example, Zhu Geliang in Chinese is often used to refer to a wise person. Shakespeare in English may remind us of his famous plays such as Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth.
Language is an important part of culture. The existence and development of language is influenced by society, and the social phenomenon and vocabulary of a certain historical period reflect the history of society as well. Such vocabulary may confuse foreign readers. For instance, when American President Nixon was in his term of office, “Water gate” became a well-established and common term. It stands for a political scandal in the Nixon era and is associated with burglarizing an office of the Democratic Party located at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Many euphemisms were created to hide the scandal. For example, the term “intelligence gathering” replaced eavesdropping and “plumber” replaced eaves dropper. Chinese students may have difficulty in understanding these words.
In the process of cross-cultural reading, we often meet comprehension barriers that are caused by such differences of social and historical cultures. For example, in the sentence “at a science museum you can feel your hair stand on end as harmless electricity passes trough your body,” the phrase “one’s hair stands on end” is an idiom. In 1825, an Englishman named Robert was sentenced to death by hanging for stealing horses. While waiting for his execution at the gallows, Robert was extremely scared, and his hair stood straight up. Therefore, in English, “one’s hair stands on end” means fear. The write本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。