An Analysis On Language-Thinking Bilingual Structures In Sub-vocalization And Sub-translation In The Chinese And English Languages In The Process Of English Reading

Reading is an important human social activity, which occurs concurrently with the appearance of written language. Because of the occurrence of written language, the sound information of a language can then be transformed into visual information and kept for a longer time. Given the psychological property of reading, Dowling and Leon (Downing & Leong, 1982) put the definition of reading into two categories. One definition emphasizes its decoding aspect. And the other one emphasizes the acquisition of meaning in reading. The above descriptions of the theoretical views will be the basis of this study which will examine Chinese college students'English reading. Chinese college English learners, being adult, have already had a powerful, stable and solid knowledge of Chinese. While reading English, the Chinese channel stays open all the time, which inevitably will affect the function of the English channel."Language-Thinking Bilingual Double Structures (LTBDS)"hypothesis holds that because two different language symbol systems exit in learners'minds, there must be two independent and interactive knowledge structure and cognition structure which dominated by the two different language systems-"knowledge-cognition structure of native language"and"knowledge-cognition structure of foreign language". This is the so-called"Bilingual Double Structures"(Liu & Yin, 2005). Starting out a phenomenon of"sub-vocalization (SV for short)"and"sub-translation (ST for short)"which widely exists in adults'foreign language reading process, and on the basis of a brief review of related theories, this paper attempts to analyze the relationship between Chinese thinking and English thinking according to theory analysis and empirical research. The results have proved and enriched"LTBDS"hypothesis, and have a practical significance for current college reading learning and teaching. This paper consists of seven chapters, and the main contents of each chapter are as follows:Chapter One gives brief introduction on some concepts such as language, speech, thinking, and adults'foreign language reading, etc. The purpose, approach and significance of the research are also defined in this chapter. Chapter Two gives the definition of SV and ST, and reviews related theories and puts forward their shortcomings, thus offers theoretical bases and practical significance of the research on SV and ST. Chapter Three explains SV and ST in terms of biology, and makes this paper more objective and scientific. Chapter Four describes"LTBDS"hypothesis in detail, and attempts to apply it to explain SV and ST theoretically. Chapter Five explores the concrete functions of SV and ST in the process of adults'English reading basing on the analysis of theories in the former chapters through two experiments. The first experiment addresses the following research questions: To what extend and under what conditions do low-level English learners appear to use SV and ST as they read different types of English materials? The second experiment addresses the following research questions: To what extend and under what conditions do high-level English learners appear to use SV and ST as they read different types of English materials? Chapter Six constructs two models of the function of SV and ST in low-level learners and high-level learners respectively basing on an integrated discussion of the experimental results. The figures are not only proving and enriching the"Bilingual Double Structure"hypothesis, but also offering a scientific and creative explanation to SV and ST. Moreover, it may on some extent instruct college English teaching and learning. Besides, it points out limitations and expectations of this research. Chapter Seven briefly generates the conclusion and significance of this research.Basing on theoretical analysis and experimental investigation, the paper reaches to the following conclusions:1) Of the three reading materials, the participation of SV is far greater than ST in both the low-level students and the high-level students. The simultaneous participation of SV and ST is close to that of ST in value. It, thus, can be concluded that the occurrence of ST is generally associated with that of ST. But this does not show a necessary link between SV and ST.2) For low-level students, the participation is greatest in narration and least in exposition with argumentation in between. In narration and exposition, the learning strategy of SV and ST both impede students'grades. In argumentation, ST promotes the grades while ST impedes the grades.3) For high-level students, the two learning strategies of SV and ST both involve the least in narration, greatest in exposition and argumentation in between. In narration and argumentation, the learning strategies of SV and ST both impede students'grades. In exposition, SV and ST promote the students'grades.4) There is no significant difference in using the learning strategies of SV and ST in the three reading materials, namely, narration, exposition and argumentation, for low-level and high-level adult learners whose native language is Chinese and study English in a foreign language environment.