Chapter OneIntroduction
With the development of society and accelerated globalization, great changesspring up between China and other foreign countries, which stimulates the use ofEnglish. Meanwhile, the requirements for people, especially for English learners, aremuch higher and stricter. They should be equipped with not only listening and speakingabilities, but also the relatively strong ability in reading. Reading is the fundamental andvital way to acquire information and communication. English reading also plays a greatrole in English teaching, as Carrell believed that as for students, it is necessary to masterreading skill because of its importance in a second language, especially in English as asecond or a foreign language (553-573). During the past decades, there have beenconsiderable researchers analyzed listening, speaking, reading and writing with textanalysis. Firstly, it is necessary to introduce text analysis. Text analysis originates from1950s. In 1952, English linguist, Harris, published an article named Discourse Analysiswhere he first proposed this term. Then, with the help of many linguists’ studies, textanalysis becomes a new and independent subject gradually. In 1970s, some linguists’studies have great influences on text, such as Halliday and his wife Hasan’s Cohesion inEnglish. In 1980s, the book Introduction to text linguistics of De Beaugrande andDressler is an vital mark for text analysis. G. Brown and G.Yule’s Discourse Analysisdid a great job that the studies made by predecessors were summed up. In China,linguists started to study text from 1980s, such as Huang Guowen’s Essentials of TextAnalysis and Hu Zhuanglin’s The Cohesion and Coherence of Text. Later, many scholarshave studied this theory and applied it to many aspects. Among those researches,reading takes up the majority, which provides sufficient theoretical bases for Englishreading teaching. In China, NMET is a kind of test which is authoritative to check the level of English learning of senior high school students. Reading takes up the majority.Many scholars pay more attention to it and more and more researchers analyze thereading comprehension of NMET.
As everyone knows that, The structure of NMET in Sichuan Province has beenchanged a lot because of the earthquake in 2008, so it has great significance to analyzethe reading comprehension of NMET in Sichuan from 2009 to 2013. That is why theauthor chooses to do the research from 2009. In this thesis, the author is mainly to studyhow to get the information in texts to answer the four types of questions with the help oftext analysis, which consists of four specific questions: 1) How to get the information intexts to answer the word - guessing questions with the help of text analysis? 2) How toget the information in texts to answer the detail questions with the help of text analysis?3) How to get the information in texts to answer the inference questions with the help oftext analysis? 4) How to get the information in texts to answer the main - idea questionswith the help of text analysis? In order to solve these questions, quantitative dataanalysis will be adopted in the study, which involves the latest five years’ readingcomprehension questions and texts of NMET in Sichuan Province from 2009 to 2013.There are one hundred questions, but only seventy eight questions can be solved withthe help of text analysis, because the others can be answered with locating theinformation easily without any cohesive reading. For the purpose of more validatedstudy, qualitative data analysis will be acquired. The reading comprehension of NMETof Sichuan 2012 will be analyzed. The procedures of qualitative analysis will be thesame with the quantitative analysis. Then according to the findings of the research, givea detailed discussion about the four types of questions. Finally, provide some usefulinstructions for English reading teaching.
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Chapter TwoLiterature Review
2.1An Introduction to Text and TextAnalysis
In 1952, Harris published an article named Discourse Analysis on the magazine ofLanguage, which was treated as the origin of the modern discourse (text) analysis. Overthe past decades, the importance of text and text analysis study was highly improved.Some theories about text analysis have been applied in the second language teaching,such as Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion and coherence theory, Heoy’s textual patternsand so on. Firstly, the concepts of text and text analysis should be mentioned in thefollowing part. Text, also named discourse, is understood differently by domestic and overseasscholars. Many experts from England and America prefer to use “discourse” and“discourse linguistics”. On the contrary, the continental experts would like to use “text”and “text linguistics”. In Huang Guowen’s book, Essentials of Text Analysis, many linguists believed that “text” refers to written language, however, when it comes tospoken language, the term “discourse” will be frequently used (3). The comprehensionof text is multiple according to different linguists. In Halliday’s view, the term “text”which is used in linguistics refers to any passage, spoken or written language no matterit is long or short, that forms a unified whole.
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2.2 TextAnalysis StudiesAbroad and at Home
The researches on text analysis in western countries are first known in Greece andRome. Many scholars have identified the differences existing between grammar andrhetoric, “the former, associated with the rules of languages and the lattern with how todo thing with words in order to achieve certain effects, and communicate successfullywith people in particular contexts” (Cook 85). From the very beginning, text analysis isa wide - ranging and interdisciplinary study. In the twentieth century, linguists began tomake researcher on language in its full context, as a part of society and the world. Thefollowing part will give a brief introduction to text analysis studies abroad and at home.
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Chapter Three Methodology........23
3.1 Research Questions.........23
3.2 Subjects.........23
3.3 Research Methods...........24
3.4 DataAnalysis............25
Chapter Four Findings and Discussion..........29
4.1 The Distributions of the Four Types of Questions....29
4.2 Discussion about the Four Types of Questions.........37
4.3 Implications of the Research............ 47
Chapter Five Conclusion.............51
Chapter FourFindings and Discussion
4.1 The Distributions of the four types of Questions
In this part the distributions of the four types of questions in readingcomprehension of NMET in Sichuan Province answered with the help of text analysiswill be presented. The first one is the results of quantitative analysis and the second oneis the results of qualitative analysis. As is mentioned in chapter three, the analysis of reading comprehension questionsand texts of NMET in Sichuan Province from 2009 to 2013 are regarded as quantitativeanalysis. There are one hundred questions, but only seventy-eight questions are suitableto be answered with the help of cohesive devices and textual patterns (see Appendix II),because some questions can be solved by locating the information easily without anydevice. In this part the author aims to use tables that are specially designed for theresearch to present the results of quantitative analysis. See the tables as follow:
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Conclusion
Reading comprehension takes up a large part in NMET, which indicates thatimproving students’ reading ability should be priority for all. However, the ways toinstruct reading teaching are very urgent.In this thesis, the author aims to study how to get the information to answer thefour types of questions in reading comprehension of NMET in Sichuan Province from2009 to 2013 with the help of text analysis including cohesion theory and textual patterntheory. To be more specific, there are four main questions. In order to solve thesequestions, the author adopts both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis.From the results of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, it is apparentthat detail questions and main - idea questions are the majority on the whole. Theformer type of questions is mainly to test readers’vocabulary and the latter one is to testreaders’ acquisition of genres with different textual patterns. The other two types ofquestions are also mainly to test students’ mastery of words. The author comes to theconclusion that there are some factors having a strong influence on students’understanding of reading comprehension of NMET: different genres with certaintextual patterns, cohesion and various topics. Different genres with certain textualpatterns are mainly to relate to the understanding of the reading comprehension as awhole and its main idea. Grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion play a vital role inunderstanding the meaning of new words. So as for English teachers, they shouldinstruct students’ reading abilities from two aspects: mastery of cohesive devices andawareness of genres with textual patterns.
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