英语信号词与篇章理解

Signals and Text Comprehension

英语信号词是语篇衔接和连贯的重要手段,它包括逻辑联系语(logicalconnectives)和段落标题(paragraphheadings).自八十年代以来,英语信号词一直是阅读和写作领域关注的对象,鉴于以往对于英语信号词与篇章理解研究方面的结论不一,本研究以英语专业学生为实验对象,实验材料为一篇长度约300词、中等难度的短文,试图验证英语信号词对于篇章的总体、微观结构和宏观结构等方面理解的影响,以及英语信号词对篇章理解的作用与阅读者的英语程度的关系.实验结果表明,与段落标题相比,逻辑联系语更有助于篇章理解,逻辑联系语因素能独立对篇章的微观结构理解和宏观结构理解都起到促进作用,使高分组的阅读者受益更大,而段落标题因素不能独立促进篇章理解.

This paper describes an investigation of the effects of English Signals on text comprehension among second-year English majors. According to the scores of reading comprehension of the final examination, the students were divided into three performance groups: High, Medium and Low. And four versions of a 300-word text were produced: Version 1 was non-signaled passage; Version 2, 3 and 4 were embedded with logical connectives, paragraph headings and these two signals in combination respectively. The four versions were distributed to the students randomly in class. And the results show that the logical connectives rather than paragraph headings contributed to reading comprehension and the readers from the high group benefited from signals during reading.