Adults' Learning Mechanism Of English Reading Viewed From The Perspective Of Chinese-English "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures"

Reading is a way of communication as well as getting information and knowledge. Thus, the acquisition of reading ability is one of the most important tasks in foreign language learning. Researchers in and abroad have been continuously carrying out researches and explorations for years to enhance the reading ability of foreign language learners from various perspectives both in theory and practice. Since the middle of 1980s, foreign researchers initiated the study of relations between native language reading ability and foreign language reading ability. They believe the three reading models almost agree to the process of foreign language reading or second language reading. Other researchers began to be interested in semantic storage model of bilinguals and transfer in foreign language learning. More and more psychologists and linguists believe that the processes of transfer from mother tongue to foreign language and assimilation are unavoidable. Considering Chomsky's theories of language innatism and language acquisition device (LAD), professor Yin Demo, who is the dean of School of Foreign Languages and Cultures in Xihua University, carried forward part of the research finding of behavioristic psychology and cognitive psychology with a critical view, and first proposed the theory of "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures" in and abroad with his tens of years of teaching experience. He believes that when adult Chinese learners are learning English, the psychological mechanism is controlled by knowledge and cognition structures of both Chinese and English. And the "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures" in the two languages interweave and mutually influence each other on different levels and in different directions all the time. Based on the theory of "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures" proposed by professor Yin Demo, this thesis mainly explores these two questions to further prove "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures":1. Does the similarity between Chinese and English have a significant influence on English reading?2. On different language levels, do the influence of language similarities upon English reading agree with one another?English reading tests of different degrees of language similarities and different language levels were given to 60 non-English majors who served as subjects in this thesis. Besides, 94 non-English majors were involved in a questionnaire. These are the primary conclusions:(1)Native language has a significant influence on English reading. The phenomenon that Chinese learners think with the help of their native language when reading English is unavoidable.(2) Native language does not simply always facilitate or interfere English reading, but would differ in its influence on English reading according to the degrees of similarity between the two languages on different language levels.(3)The influence of native language on English reading is realized by the interaction among knowledge structures and cognition structures of both Chinese and English.This thesis can be divided into five parts. Chapter One briefly introduces this thesis. Chapter two reviews the definitions of reading, the main reading models, and the study findings about learning and bilingualism. The theoretical foundation and the main content of "Cognition-Knowledge Bilingual Double Structures" are explored in Chapter Three. On the basis of this theory, three hypotheses about the influence of language similarities upon English reading on different language levels are proposed. Chapter Four includes an experiment and a questionnaire which are to validate the hypotheses proposed in Chapter Three. Chapter Five mainly discusses the theoretical value of the research in this thesis and also the problems remain to explore.