The Effects of Schema Theory and Background Knowledge on English Reading Comprehension

曹立秋（內蒙古師范大學 外國語學院，內蒙古 呼和浩特 010022）

Abstract:How to master a language? Listening, speaking,reading and writing are prerequisite for second language acquisition.And reading is salient for learners to input opulent information, involving vocabulary and background knowledge.Reading can help learners acquire and accumulate vocabulary and learn more about the culture of Englishspeaking countries, which will lay the foundation for future English learning.Schema theory was proposed by R.C.Anderson(1983).This learning theory takes organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract mental structures which represents one's understanding of the word.And schema theory has a fabulous impact on English reading comprehension.

Key words:Schema theory; Background knowledge; English reading comprehension

Ⅰ.The Definition of Schema Theory

What is schema? German philosopher Immanuel Kant is considered to be the fi rst person who put forward the concept of schema in his book Critique of Pure Reason in 1781.Нe explained it as prior experience and knowledge structure in people's mind and it is the connection between concepts and objects[1].

The theory considers reading comprehension as an interactive process of a relevant interpretation developed through an interaction of information in materials and existing knowledge in the reader's brain.

And schema theory has two types of schemata have been identi fi ed by Carrell (1983): "content" and "formal' schemata.Content schemata contain general or specific information on a given topic.Formal schemata information is about how rhetoric is organized.These two classes of schemata vary along a continuum of specificity and abstraction.At one end of this continuum are content schemata, which can be thought of as being relatively speci fi c and concrete.

Ⅱ.The Effects of Schema Theory and Background Knowledge on English Reading Comprehension

From my point of view, schema is the background knowledge stored in people's minds and helps learners to understand the text.Schema is the foot stone of cognitive ability, which is used as explaining, predicting and organizing outsider information.If there is the schema that has a bearing on outsider information stored in learners' minds, they will deal with it better and vice versa.That is to say, schema is the recognition of the world in our brain.The process of understanding a reading passage is an interacting process of prior knowledge in learners' brain and information conveyed by linguistic materials.Writers' real intention can be obtained when the schemata and the information are combined together.And also, certain information should be input fi rst, correlated schemata should be searched and found, and then the newly input information can be compared with, analyzed by and processed with prior knowledge.Thus, new information can be comprehended.

Except for vocabulary, background knowledge is also of paramount importance in English reading comprehension.As we all known,schema theory is divided into formal schemata and content schemata.When it comes to formal schemata, in the process of reading, learners have a glance at a text, the structures of text they stored in mind would match automatically the structure of this passage, which helps learners acknowledge the structure and logic of the passage and decide to capitalize on what kinds of reading strategies next.On the other hand,content schemata are related closely to accumulating background knowledge.Simultaneously, content schemata offers the outlines of relevant concepts in learners' memories.And once these memories are activated, learners can construct the whole schema through reviewing knowledge.Therefore, he can remember some information that pertains to the text.

According to Coady (1979), background knowledge may be able to compensate for certain synaptic de fi ciencies.Most of learners often meet a problem that they have a command of the meaning of every word but still don't know clearly what the text means as a whole.The reason why they don't understand the text is that the meaning of each individual word may be not pertinent to the surrounding words.Thus, learners fail to achieve comprehension just on this account that they haven't relevant schemata to match the information that the text is talking about.Therefore, the importance of background information in reading comprehension shouldn't be underestimated.

In 1970s, American linguist Krashen expounded the theory of second language acquisition.And one of the fi ve theories of the input hypothesis holds that adequate comprehensible language input is requisite for language acquisition.That is to say, comprehensible input means input language should a little beyond students' current level of language competence.To achieve comprehensible input, learners need to read a lot.The more one reads, the greater amount of background information he will accumulate.In the reading process, the number of schemata that students have will determine how easily their brain could interpret the passage.

Ⅲ.Conclusion

Any articles can bring readers certain information which refers not only to the literal level comprehension but also information between lines.Similarly, the greater number of articles one reads, the richer of the relevant knowledge one will possess as he continues his reading,moving forward gradually his understanding.At least, he won't have no idea what the text, even with greater linguistic dif fi culty, is about.In conclusion, once learners master enough vocabulary and background knowledge, they could interpret the meaning of text and cultivate and improve English reading comprehension.