英语专业硕士论文语篇分析理论在高考完形填空中的应用研究.doc

类别全日制研究生教育硕士同等学力编 号：硕士学位论文题 目: A Study of the Application of Discourse Analysis in National Matriculation English Test (NMET) Cloze Test语篇分析理论在高考完形填空中的应用研究培 养 单 位： 外国语学院专 业 名 称： 应用语言学指 导 教 师：研 究 生： 完 成 时 间： 2011年5月沈阳师范大学研究生处制学位论文独创性声明   本人郑重声明：所呈交的硕士学位论文，是本人在指导教师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确的方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。  作者签名： 日期： 学位论文使用授权声明  本人授权沈阳师范大学研究生处，将本人硕士学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索；有权保留学位论文并向国家主管部门或其指定机构送交论文的电子版和纸质版，允许论文被查阅和借阅；有权可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇编学位论文。保密的学位论文在解密后适用本规定。作者签名： 日期： A Study of the Application of Discourse Analysis in National Matriculation English Test (NMET) Cloze TestA ThesisSubmitted to the School of Foreign LanguagesShenyang Normal UniversityIn Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofMaster of ArtsBy Hou BaohuaUnder the Supervision of Professor Zhang PingMay 2011This thesis was accepted as meeting the research requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts._ Date _Advisor_ Date _Thesis Committee Member_ Date _Thesis Committee MemberApproved:_ Date _ Chair of Oral Defense Committee _ Date _Dean of School of Foreign LanguagesAcknowledgementsI would like to give my heart-felt thanks to my teacher, professor Zhang Ping, who gives me insightful remarks and suggestions, which influence my academic life in a real sense. Without her patient support and instruction, I cannot accomplish my thesis very well at all. The daily life I get from Professor Zhang will go beyond my academic life to other aspects as I have learned how to be a real teacher from her, my dear tutor.I also give my thanks to Professor Bai Zhigang, who gives me lots of guidance on data analysis and effective suggestions when my paper is under way, and my thanks also goes to Professor Wu Qiong, Professor Zhao Fengqin, and Professor Wu Jinping. Besides, Id like to give my thanks to my classmate and my friend, Zhao Lu and Bai Ying, who gives me lots of support when the experiment is carried out. They discuss problems with me about my research. All these contribute a lot to my successful compliment of the research. Finally, thanks also go to my beloved family members who support and love me all the time. It is their great love that stimulates me to head on and on with great progress.AbstractAccording to the Syllabus of National Matriculation Examination Test, the requirements for cloze test are “choose the best answer which is the most appropriate from both grammar and logic and make the passage understood, coherent and integrative.” Twenty words or phrases are deleted from the passage. The students must read the passage firstly and go through the full text, understand the main idea and make sense of the context and apply their vocabulary and grammar to analyze every choice given for each blank and finally choose the best answer for each blank. In recent entrance examinations, cloze tests are used to test students on their reading comprehension and their ability to use the basic knowledge in terms of discourse. Therefore, the application of discourse analysis in cloze test will be a guidance to improve students scores in National Matriculation English Test (NMET).This paper states the theories of discourse and discourse analysis, introduces the appearance of cloze test and the proposition features of NMET Cloze Test, and analyzes the research situation of the application of discourse analysis in cloze tests. In the study, questionnaire and experiment are carried out on two classes of NO. 9 Middle School in Shenyang. The teaching experiment takes two months. At the end of the two-month long experiment, questionnaires are distributed to the students. After the analysis of the pre-test and post-test data, we get the following conclusions: If we pay attention to the discourse knowledge while teaching new texts and explaining cloze tests, the students problem-solving ability of cloze tests will be enhanced so that a higher accuracy can be achieved. Key words: discourse, discourse analysis, National Matriculation English Test (NMET) Cloze Test摘 要普通高等学校招生考试全国统一考试大纲对完形填空的要求是“选出无论在语法还是行文逻辑方面都能符合语篇的最佳选项，使得文章意思通顺、前后连贯、结构完整”。文中有20个单词或短语被挖掉，造成信息链的中断，考生必须通读全文，掌握大意，结合情景，综合运用所学的词汇、语法等知识，对每个空格的所给选项做出合理的分析、判断，从而选出最佳选项填入空缺处。近年的完形填空测试，日益侧重从语篇的角度从何测试学生对文章理解能力和对基础知识的运用能力。因此，研究语篇相关理论在完形填空训练中的运用，对提高学生高考成绩有一定的指导意义。本论文陈述了语篇、语篇分析理论，并介绍了完形填空的产生及高考完形填空题的命题特点，分析了语篇在完形填空中应用的研究现状。研究采用问卷和实验的方法，对沈阳市某高中的两个班进行了为期两个月的教学实验，最后并进行了问卷调查。把学生的前、后测成绩做了数据分析得出以下结论：在讲授新课及讲解完形填空时都注重语篇分析，就可以帮助学生提高完形填空的解题能力，从而提高准确率。关键词：语篇，语篇分析，高考完形填空ContentsAcknowledgements.iAbstract in English.iiAbstract in Chinese.ivList of TablesvChapter 1 Introduction.11.1 General Introduction.11.2 Purposes of My Study.11.3 Cloze Test in NMET21.4 Outline of the Thesis.3Chapter 2 Literature Review42.1 Theories of Discourse and Discourse Analysis.42.1.1 Definition of Discourse.4 2.1.2 Definition of Discourse Analysis.5 2.1.3 Contents of Discourse Analysis.72.1.3.1 Cohesion in Discourse7 2.1.3.2 Coherence in Discourse.15 2.1.3.3 Gestalt in Discourse.162.2 Theories of Cloze Test.17 2.2.1 Definition of Cloze Test.172.2.2 Categories and Properties of Cloze Test.182.3 Relation of Discourse Analysis and Cloze Test.19 2.4 Previous Studies on Cloze Test.202.4.1 Research at Abroad.20 2.4.2 Domestic Research.21Chapter 3 Methodology.22 3.1 Hypothesis of the Study223.2 Subjects.223.3 Instruments233.3.1 Cloze Test Items.23 3.3.2 Questionnaire .233.4 Procedure.243.4.1 Experimental Research.24 3.4.1.1 Pre-test Period .24 3.4.1.2 Post-test Period.303.4.2 Questionnaire Research.303.5 Data Collection.313.6 Data Analysis.31Chapter 4 Results and Discussion.334.1 Experimental Results and Analysis.334.1.1 Pre-test Results and Analysis.334.1.2 Post-test Results and Analysis.374.2 Questionaire Results and Analysis .404.3 Discussion 46 4.3.1 Discussion on NMET Cloze Test from the Perspective of Cohesion.47 4.3.1.1 Grammatical Cohesion.47 4.3.1.2 Conjunction.48 4.3.1.3 Lexical Cohesion .50 4.3.2 Discussion on NMET Cloze Test from the Perspective of Coherence.514.3.3 Discussion on NMET Cloze Test from the Perspective of Gestalt.52Chapter 5 Conclusion.565.1 Major Findings.565.2 Pedagogical Implications.56 5.3 Limitations of the Present Study.58 5.4 Suggestions for Further Study.58References.60Appendix A.63Appendix B.65Appendix C.67Appendix D.69List of TablesTable 1 The Pre-test Histogram of Class A.34Table 2 The Pre-test Histogram of Class B.35Table 3 The Statistics of the Two Classes.36Table 4 The Independent Samples Test of the Two Classes.36Table 5 The Post-test Histogram of Class A.37Table 6 the Post-test Histogram of Class B.38Table 7 The Descriptive Statistics of Pre-test and Post test of Class A.39Table 8 The Descriptive Statistics of Pre-test and Post test of Class B.39Table 9 The Group Statistics of the Two Classes.39Table 10 The Independent Samples Test of the Two Classes.40Table 11 The Frequency of Q1 of Class A.42Table 12 The Frequency of Q1 of Class B.42Table 13 The Frequency of Q8 of Class A.43Table 14 The Frequency of Q8 of Class B.43Table 15 The Frequency of Q9 of Class A. .43Table 16 The Frequency of Q9 of Class B.44Table 17 The Frequency of Q14 of Class A.44Table 18 The Frequency of Q14 of Class B.45Table 19 The Frequency of Q15 of Class A.45Table 20 The Frequency of Q15 of Class B.45Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 General IntroductionFrom 1960s, discourse analysis has been widely applied for 50 years. In the middle of 1980s, foreign linguists had proposed the assumption of discourse teaching syllabus. Meanwhile, it had been applied in foreign language teaching by domestic researchers, such as English reading, writing and translation, etc (Huang, Guowen, 2001). There are analysis of discourse analysis and cloze test, however, it is seldom put into National Matriculation English Test (NMET) cloze test. In this paper, the role of cohesion and coherence in NMET cloze test is analyzed, and at the same time, the thematic progression patterns and Gestalt Psychology are taken into consideration. With the related theories, the cloze test items in NMET are analyzed. This kind of analysis will be useful to the teaching of cloze test in middle schools. And under the guidance of our analysis, the middle school teachers can summarize a set of solutions to deal with cloze test in NMET.1.2 Purposes of the StudyMost students think that cloze is the most difficult part to handle in NMET examination and lose a lot of marks in it. The main cause is that they are lack of discourse knowledge. This study is supposed to analyze cloze test in NMET from the perspective of discourse. And it will help testees know the features of cloze test and also it will call teachers attention in the process of teaching. It will contribute to teaching of reading and cloze solving. Following discourse analysis principles to handle cloze tests, students should get a much higher score in NMET test. In order to know the role of discourse knowledge in solving cloze test, an experimental study was carried out, following the study, the following two questions are supposed to be answered:1. Are students scores raised after a period of conscious teaching with the knowledge of discourse?2. Do secondary students pay attention to the role of discourse knowledge while doing cloze tests after a period of conscious teaching with the knowledge of discourse?1.3 Cloze Test in NMETAccording to the Syllabus of National Matriculation Examination Test, the requirements for cloze test are that “choose the best answer which is the most appropriate from both grammar and logic and make the passage understood, coherent and integrative.” In this part, there are 20 blanks and the total score is 30 points. For the cloze test, the passage is not difficult which equals to the text from their English textbooks. There will be 200-250 words in the passage and twenty words or phrases are deleted. The students must read the passage firstly and go through the full text, understand the main idea and make sense of the context and apply their vocabulary and grammar to analyze every choice given for each blank and finally choose the best answer for each blank (Liu, Juesheng, 2008). Through the general survey of the past cloze tests in NMET, it is easy to find out that:1. The length and blanks of the passage are relatively stable. And this is a reflection of NMET proposition principle;2. The blanks are mainly for content words. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns take up more than 90% and there are few prepositions, conjunctions and articles;3. The role of discourse is very important and application ability is emphasized. From the above analysis, it is obvious that the ability of discourse is enhanced in cloze test and as well as the usage of vocabulary. Cloze tests in NMET pay more and more attention to the combination of knowledge and ability.1.4 Outline of the ThesisThis paper was divided into 5 chapters. Chapter one introduces the purposes of the study and cloze test in NMET. Chapter two states the theories of discourse, discourse analysis and cloze test, mainly including cohesion, coherence, Gestalt Psychology, thematic progression patterns, definition, categories and properties of cloze test. Relation of discourse analysis and cloze test is also discussed in chapter two. The third chapter is about methodology. It outlines the hypothesis of the study, instruments used in the study and the procedure of the study. Chapter four is results and discussion. In this chapter, the author first states the results of the experiment and questionnaire and makes a simple analysis of the results. Then, together with the data from the study, the author makes a detailed discussion. The last chapter, chapter five is a general summary of the research. It outlines the pedagogical implications, limitations of the present study and also gives some suggestions for further study. Chapter 2 Literature Review2.1 Theories of Discourse and Discourse AnalysisOver the past several decades, the research of discourse and discourse analysis caught a lot of attention and it was deeply involved and widely applied in language-teaching area. Some theories in discourse analysis such as cohesion, coherence, schema and so on are commonly used in ESL teaching and also they are thought to be important in enhancing language interpretation, especially listening comprehension, reading and writing. This paper aims to analyze the function of discourse analysis in