Speech Act Theory And College English Teaching Of Reading

Speech act theory is the first major theory in pragmatics which originated with the British philosopher John Austin in the 1950s. The essence of this theory concerns mainly that language is often used to "do things", to perform acts and to emphasize real language in use in actual situation. This theory explains the nature of linguistic communication. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking; thus linguistic communication is composed of a succession of acts.Judging from the basic tenets of speech act theory, it can be stated that this theory focuses on the study of communicative competence rather than the linguistic competence. It investigates and analyzes how the participants perform speech acts and participate in speech events in various situations. The major contribution of speech act theory is in its clarification of dimensions of communicative competence, and thus provides new implications in English teaching. As early as in 1989, J.C.Richard kept us informed of the fact that "the relevance of speech act theory and research to language teaching is through its contribution to the theory of communicative language teaching. Writers on communicative syllabus design such as Munby and Wilkins, make use of speech act and speech event theory in their accounts of notional and communicative teaching." (Widdowson: 1978)In the implementation of theory into practice, the communicative language teaching approach has its advantages. Its evident concern with the use of the language sustains the motivations of the learners and stimulates their active participation in the teaching process. Therefore, speech act theory overlaps communicative language teaching in that both are focused on the use of language rather than the knowledge of language. Besides, speech act theory forcefully explains the relationship between language and its function. It lays the theoretical foundation for communicative language teaching approach. Therefore, developing college students' communicative competence is an urgent and necessary task in college English teaching. The teaching process should focus on students' contextual awareness development, cultural awareness development and pragmatic competence developmentAfter analyzing the conventional perspectives on nature of reading and present learning and teaching situation of reading, this thesis discusses the application of speech act theory in theteaching of reading. It put forward the communicative perspective on reading and methodological principles for the teaching of reading which includes cultural background knowledge (the prerequisite of comprehension), discourse structure analysis (the key of reading comprehension) and inferences ( the core of comprehension). Besides, some modes and approaches to the teaching of reading are suggested.This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the origin and development of speech act theory. Chapter two analyzes the implications of speech act theory for foreign language teaching. Chapter three presents conventional perspectives on nature of reading and present learning and teaching situation of reading. Chapter four discusses the application of speech act theory in the teaching of reading. Chapter five is conclusion.