Schema Theory and Knowledge-Based Processes in SL Reading Comprehension英文资料.pdfVIP

Language Learning 52:2, June 2002, pp. 439–481 Schema Theory and Knowledge-Based Processes in Second Language Reading Comprehension: A Need for Alternative Perspectives Hossein Nassaji University of Victoria Despite major theoretical developments in second lan- guage (L2) reading comprehension over the last two decades, many attempts at explaining the role of knowl- edge in comprehension are still made almost exclusively in the context of schema theory. I first review and critically analyze the major assumptions underlying schema theory. Then, I consider an alternative perspective, a construction-integration model of text comprehension, and discuss how this perspective, when applied to L2 reading comprehension, offers a fundamentally different and more comprehensive account of the role of knowledge and knowledge-based processes that L2 researchers had pre- viously tried to explain within schema-theoretic principles. Introduction Any attempt to explain the processes whereby a text is understood entails a profound understanding of the cognitive processes in which knowledge is represented, processed, and used in comprehension. The concept of schema was originally proposed The author would like to thank Alister Cumming, Gordon Wells, three anonymous reviewers, and the editor, Nick Ellis, for helpful comments on initial drafts of this paper. Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to Hossein Nassaji, Linguistics Department, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P4. 439 440 Language Learning Vol. 52, No. 2 by Bartlett (1932), a follow