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1、Cohesion and Reading Teaching1 Reading as an Integrative ProcessFor many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in second languages, particularly in English as a foreign language. Success in reading course requires that both the teacher and the students have a clear idea a
2、bout the nature of reading. According to psycholinguistic models of reading. reading is an interactive process of communication (Nuttall,1982).“A psycholinguistic process by which the reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”Goodman(19
3、73). And Widdowson(1979)has discussed reading in this light as the process of combining textual information with the information a reader bring to a text. In this view the reading process is not simply a matter of extracting information from the text .Rather, it is one in which the reading activates
4、 a range of knowledge in the readers mind that he or she uses,and that,in turn,may be refined and extended by the new information supplied by the text. Reading is thus viewed as a kind of dialogue between the reader and the text.Carroll and Eisteerhold(1983)concluded that(1) our understanding of rea
5、ding is best considered as an interactive process that takes place between the reader and the text. The basic concept is that the reader reconstructs the text information based in part on the knowledge drawn from the text and in part from the prior knowledge available to the reader.(2)Reading as an
6、interactive process refers to the interaction of many component skills potentially in simultaneous operation,the interaction of these cognitive skills leads to fluent reading comprehension. Simply stated,reading involves both an array of lower-level rapid, automatic identification skills and an arra
7、y of higher-level comprehension or interpretation skills. (Goodman,1973)regarded reading is not a passive, but rather an active,and in fact an interactive .Process has been recognized for some time in first or active language reading. Nuttall(1982)describes reading as“active interrogation of a text”
8、in which the reader tries“to make sense of the text in terms of his presuppositions”.To sum up,reading is an interactive process that takes place between readers and texts. And during the reading the reader places an active role in extracting meaning from the text. It is a misconception to regard re
9、ading as a passive skill.2 Cohesion and the Interpretation of TextAs we discussed, reading is as an interactive process. The interaction between the writer and reader is made possible via the text. It is through the text that the writer encodes his message and it is also through the text that the re
10、ader gets the meaning of the message by decoding it. What is a text? According to Halliday and Aasan(1976), a text is “a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning.A text may be spoken of written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play,
11、from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion on a committee.”In their view, a text is “a unit of language is use . Most texts is distinguished from a non-text by its texture .The texture is primarily provided by cohesion. According to Halliday and Hasan(1976), cohesion is a semantic concep
12、t,which refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text. Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by reco
13、urse to. Since the speaker or writer uses cohesion to signal texture,the listener of reader has to react to it in order to interpret it. Cohesion holds segments of a text together,making it a semantic edifice just as mortar does bricks or stones in a building. The importance of cohesion lies in the
14、continuity it expresses between one part of the text and another.This continuity is necessary for the interpretation of text.(1)It provides the main thread of a text by showing that some entity or circumstance,some relevant feature or argument persists from one moment to another in the semantic proc
15、ess as the meaning unfold.(2) It creates the characteristic feel” of a text. The continuity expressed by cohesion not only makes a text interpretable ,it also provides it with its affective power.(3)It enables the reader to supply all the missing items necessary for the interpretation of a text: In
16、texts ,especially in spoken texts, there are generally a lot of omissions and substitutions. This is because the interlocutors are in a direct ,face-to-face interaction, and their mutual understanding is made easier by their facial expressions,gestures and other linguistic and non-linguistic context
17、. But in reading, the reader cannot appeal to the writer for the clarification of meaning. It is therefore,necessary for them to supply the missing items him.(4)It provides the basis for making predictions and building expectations. The continuity expressed by cohesion constitutes the contest, which
18、 provides the basis for making predictions and building expectations in reading.3 Cohesive Devices in Reading TeachingAccording to Goodman(1973),the efficient readers relies on strategies which yield the most reliable prediction with minim use of the information available”, he perceives “only partly
19、 what he sees and partly he expects to see because he has learned to organize his predictions according to what is and is not significant in the language”,and also because he knows not only “what to pay attention to” but also “what not to pay attention to”.So an efficient reader reads faster and get
20、s more messages whereas a poor reader reads slowly and gets less information. And the major task of reading course is to cultivate efficient readers. One of the ways that the teacher can help her students is to teach them bow to use cohesive devices as signposts in reading,there are four ways by whi
21、ch cohesion is created in English:by reference,ellipsis conjunction,and lexical organization (Halliday, M.A.K.1985). We can illustrate all of these from the following text.Little Boy Blue, come below your horn!The sheeps in the meadow,the cows in the corn.Where is the boy that looks after the sheep?
22、Hes under the haycock,fast asleep.Will you go wake him? No,not I!For if I do, hell be sure to cry.(Halliday.M.A.K.1985)The use of.he him.he to refer back to “the boy that looks after the sheep” is an instance of reference. The forms no not I and if I do exemplify ellipsis,they have to be interpreted
23、 as no I(will) not (wake him)and if I (wake him).The word for expresses a conjunctive relationship between “I will not” and “if I do he will cry”. The word sheep in line three reiterates sheep in line two; cow relates to sheep,corn to meadow,and wake to asleep;these are all examples of lexical cohes
24、ion.3.1 Reference：A participant or circumstantial element introduced at one place in the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows. In the simplest case this means that the same thing comes in again.(1)The reference first evolved as an “exophoric”relation.that is ,as a means
25、of linking “out wards”to some person or object in the environment. So,for example ,the concept of “he” probably originated as “that man over there”.In other words we may postulate an imaginary stage in the evolution of language when the basic referential category of PERSON was DEICTIC in the strict
26、sense,“to be interpreted by reference to the situation here and now”.Thus I refer to the one speaking. You mean that the one(s)spoken to. He,she,it,they were the third party. For example,Peter,peter,pumpkin eater,Had a wife and couldnt keep her.He put her in a pumpkin shellAnd there he kept her very
27、 well(Halliday, M.A.K.1985)Here he and her are anaphoric, “pointing”respectively to Peter and to his wife.(2)The second type of reference item is the demonstrative,this/that, and these/those.Demonstratives may also be either exophoric or anaphoric； in origin they were probably the same as third-pers
28、on forms, but they retain a strong deistic flavor than the personals, and have evolved certain distinct anaphoric functions of their own.(3) The third type of the reference is comparative reference. Whereas personals and demonstratives, when used anaphorically, set up a relation of co-reference,wher
29、eby the same entity is referred to over again, comparatives set up a relation of contrast. In comparative reference, the reference item still signals “you know which”,not becausse the same entity is being referred to over again but rather because there is a frame of reference-something by reference
30、to which what I am now talking about is the same or different, like or unlike, equal or unequal, more or less. And furthermore any expression such as the same, another, similar ,different,as big, bigger,less big,and related adverbs such as likewise, differently equally,presumes some standard of refe
31、rence in the preceding text.From above. Reference is a relationship between things or facts(phenomena,or metaphenomena);it may be established at varying distances,and although it usually serves to relate single elements that have a function within the clause (processes, participants, circumstances),
32、it can give to any passage of text the status of a fact, and so turn it into a clause participant.3.2 Ellipsis and substitution: is relationship involving a particulate form of wording, either a clause or some smaller item； it is usually confined to closely contiguous passages, and is particularly c
33、haracteristic of question+answer or similar “adjacency pairs” in dialogue. For example, so in Alices reply:“.If youve seen them so often, of course you know what theyre like?“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully.3.3 Conjunction:The conjunctive relations typically involve contiguous elements up
34、to the size of paragraphs, or their equivalent in spoken language; conjunction is a way of setting up the logical relations that characterize clause complexes in the absence of the structural relationships by which such complexes are defined And it is within the domains of elaboration,extension and
35、enhancement. For examples then in(1);meanwhile in (2);in that case in(3);also in(4).(1)“Supposing it couldnt find any?”she suggested.“Then it would die, of course.”(2)Theyll be here in ten minutes. Meanwhile, well have some coffee.(3)In that case,we should keep silent(4)Also, I must tell you what ha
36、ppened to him3.4 The Lexical Cohesion: comes about through the selection of items that are related in some way to those that have gone before. It may be established in a text by the choice of words.This may take the form of word repetition, or the choice of a word that is related in some way to a pr
37、evious on either semantically ,such that the two are in the broadest sense synonymous, or collocationally, such that the two have more than ordinary tendency to co-occur. Lexical cohesion may be maintained over long passages by the presence of keywords, words having special significance for the mean
38、ing of the particular text.(1)Repetition. The most direct form of lexical cohesion is the repartition of a lexical item, e.g. bear inAlgae met a bear. The bear was bulgy.Here the second occurrence of bear harks back to the first.(2)Synonymy. In the second place, lexical cohesion results from the cho
39、ice of a lexical item that is in some sense synonymous with a preceding one； for example sound with noise, cavalry with hyraces inHe was just wondering which road to take when he was startld by noise from behind him. It was the noise of trotting horses.He dismounted and led his horse as quickly as h
40、e could along the right-hand road. The sound of the cavalry grew rapidly near(3)Collocation. At the same time there are other instances of lexical cohesion which do not depend on any general semantic relationship of the types just discussed, but rather on a particular association between the items i
41、n question-a tendency to co-occur. This “co-occurrence tendency”is known as collocation. For example,A little fat man of BombayWas smoking one very hot day.But a bird called a snipeFlew away with his pipe,Which vexed the fat man of Bombay.There is a strong collocation bond between smoke and pipe,whi
42、ch makes the occurrence of pipe in line 4 cohesive.4 ConclusionIn this paper we have discussed the importance of cohesion it the interpretation of text and demonstrated how we can help our students improve their reading by analyzing cohesive and using cohesive devices. From our discussion and analysis ,we can conclude that cohesion has an important role to the reading teaching
