A Study Of Influence Of Cultural Factors On Science Students’ English Reading

Reading, an important ingredient of communication, is vital to successful language learning and application. Reading ability is one of the important skills that students need to master. Reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process which needs a combination of reader’s language competence, knowledge of the related cultures and other skills. For Chinese students, English reading is a cross-cultural activity. Therefore, cultural background knowledge is an important factor which influences the understanding of English articles or passages.Culture has abundant meanings. Generally, Culture is about the knowledge beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, as well as other abilities and habits of certain social members. Culture is a kind of social, national and historical phenomenon, which is human-specific, guiding and constraining human behavior. Language and culture are inseparable. On one hand, language, with deep culture implication of its nation, is a form and major portion of culture. On the other hand, as a reflection and carrier of culture, every language has its own culture content.In order to explore science students’ mastery of culture knowledge of the target language as well as their English reading ability, and to prove that acquiring some culture knowledge is very important for students to improve their English reading comprehension ability,the author analyzed 200 passages in CET-4/6 reading comprehension, focusing on culture-related background knowledge implied in the passages. Besides, a thematic investigation was conducted among 102 science students in CDUT. All the participants were required to complete a culture test and a questionnaire in class. Data from the test and questionnaire, together with students’ reading score in CET, is analyzed with SPSS.Based on detailed analysis and discussion, three major findings are obtained in this thesis. First of all, there are different kinds of cultural factors in college students’ CET reading passages. Secondly, the average standard of science students’ culture knowledge is not high and their ability to understand and appreciate culture-related passages needs to be improved. There are also great deviations of culture knowledge and reading ability among students. Thirdly, cultural factors do have some influence on college students’ English reading comprehension. There is a correlation between the amount of students’ background culture knowledge and their English reading comprehension ability. At last, based on this study, the author puts forward some implications from the perspective of improving science students’ culture awareness and English reading ability, aiming to promote the efficiency of English reading teaching.