A Study on Cross-cultural Barriers in Reading of English 英语专业毕业论文 (2).docVIP

A Study on Cross-cultural Barriers in Reading of English I. Introduction Decoding and comprehension are the two main tasks for reading: In English learning, the elements, which influence the reading are linguistic knowledge, cultural background knowledge, language skills, and intelligent elements (the abilities of thought such as motivation, purpose, emotion and control). Mastering linguistic knowledge of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar is helpful to decode the word symbols. However, in the process of reading, many Chinese students already possess the above knowledge, but they still cannot comprehend the texts completely, so understanding the cultural content of what one reads is a crucial factor in reading comprehension. Because language is the carrier of culture, peoples words and deeds reflect certain cultural connotation consciously or unconsciously. Every social communication possesses its own certain thought pattern, value, custom, and way of life. For “The influence of background to comprehension is larger than language knowledge.” (Ma, 1995). Many studies indicate that without sufficient background knowledge of social culture, the readers cannot comprehend the deep meaning of texts. This paper will examine the cross-cultural difficulties in the process of English reading in three aspects: what the main difficulties are in reading, why these difficulties exist and how to reduce and eliminate them to achieve the exact comprehension. The paper, from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, tries to analyze the role of cultural knowledge in reading comprehension, generalizes the comprehension barriers Chinese students meet in the comprehension process of English reading and explains the relationship between the barriers and language. The paper then analyzes the internal causes of the barriers. And lastly, it brings forth approaches and methods for eliminating the barriers. I. The Role of Cultural Knowledge in Reading Comprehension Along with the devel