The Application Of Discourse Analysis To English Reading Instruction In Senior High School

In order to overcome the disadvantages of traditional teaching of reading and accord with new curriculum standard, it is necessary to apply the discourse analysis in teaching reading comprehension. Discourse analysis and the related theories are of great help to reading. They can not only help to improve students' reading ability, but also to cultivate students' communicative ability of language. In this thesis, the author briefly introduces discourse analysis through careful review of literature concerned. Based on investigation into and research on the implementation of discourse analysis in reading class, the author analyzes the following problems: understanding of context, using world knowledge and background knowledge, distinguishing theme, thematic structure and discourse structure and understanding indistinct meaning etc. In combination with teaching practice, the author applied discourse analysis in teaching reading in the experimental class. In this way, students treated discourses as a whole, grasped writers' meaning and understood the content well. The result of the post-experimental test shows that students in experimental class have made great progress in reading. They improved their reading speed and degree of accuracy, especially in understanding content and guessing the meaning of new words. In conclusion, the author argues that it is of great importance to apply discourse analysis in English reading instruction. The author hopes that this thesis can shed light on foreign language learning and teaching. And it is the author's hope that more empirical study will be made in the future.