A Study On The Correlation Between Tolerance Of Ambiguity And Reading Strategies Use In Journal Article Reading Among English-major Postgraduates

In 1949, American psychologist Frenkel-Brunswik firstly puts forward tolerance of ambiguity. Tolerance of ambiguity as a cognitive style and emotional factor, refers to the attitudes that learners hold towards ambiguous, unfamiliar or uncertain situations in learning process, ranging from initiative acceptation to negative resistance. It is inevitable to emerge different kinds of ambiguities in the second language learning and acquisition. At the same time, reading is a vital part in second language learning. For English-major postgraduates, they encounter all kinds of ambiguous and uncertain situations when reading and in the process of understanding. Therefore, the paper aims to study the correlation between tolerance of ambiguity and reading strategies in journal articles.Based on the theories of tolerance of ambiguity and reading strategies, the author conducts a quantitative study. The number of valid subjects of the study is 80 English-major postgraduates. The author employs Ely’s(1989) Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale(SLTAS), journal articles reading strategy questionnaire and a journal article as instruments. Data analysis is done through SPSS.The findings of the study are shown as follows:1) English major postgraduates have a moderate level of tolerance of ambiguity in general. Among 80 subjects, the number of students with higher, middle and lower levels of tolerance of ambiguity is 15, 60, 5.2) There are also positive correlations between the subjects’ tolerance of ambiguity and journal article reading strategies. To be more specific, there are different levels of positive correlations between tolerance of ambiguity and metacognitive, cognitive and social reading strategies.3) The differences in journal article reading strategies between the subjects with higher and lower degree of tolerance of ambiguity are significant. The subjects with higher degree of tolerance of ambiguity usually employ more metacognitive reading strategies among cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. For both subjects with higher and lower level of tolerance of ambiguity, their “top ten journal article reading strategies” are different. However, when reading journal articles, the subjects with higher tolerance of ambiguity have something in common with subjects who have lower level of tolerance of ambiguity, that is to say, cognitive and metacognitive strategies are more often employed by them.The author gets some teaching implications through the study. Teachers should pay more attention to tolerance of ambiguity, and develop students’ awareness of tolerance of ambiguity so that they can help students improve their tolerance of ambiguity. When reading journal articles, students also need to focus on reading strategies. Teachers should try their best to develop students’ habit of employing journal articles’ reading strategies in a correct and appropriate way.