UNIT 1

 Understanding of written texts

A complex activity that involves:

-Perception
-Thought

Two related processes:

-Word recognition: perceiving how written symbols
correspond to one’s spoken language.

-Comprehension: making sense of words, sentences and

connected text.
 Word recognition and comprehension:

 こちらは田中さんです

 Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu

 Das ist Herr Smith

 This is Mr. Tanaka

 Éste es el Sr. Tanaka

 Background knowledge
 Vocabulary
 Grammatical knowledge
 Experience with text
 Other strategies

 What is the aim of reading? Why do we

read?
 To gain new knowledge
 Enjoy literature
 Everyday things: newspapers, job lists, instructions
manuals, maps…
Formalism (1950s-1970s):
-The value of a text depends on its intrinsic
aesthetic or formal configuration (René Wellek,
Austin Warren)
emphasis on the author

Reader response theory (1960s and 70s):

-Readers’s response as an integral part of
literary communication (Stanley Fish, Roland
Barthes)
emphasis on the reader
 Consequence: RELATIVITY OF
INTERPRETATION of a text

The text acquires meaning within the specific

context reading is a personal activity

WIDE RANGE OF RESPONSES TO A TEXT

(PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: MARGARET ATWOOD’S “Bread”, from Murder in
the Darkness)
The range of acceptability depends on:
-response must be accurately verbalized
according to each communicative situation
(informal conversation, exam…)

- speaker’s ability to gather the information

required to explain and justify his/her
response
- Awareness of specific TEXTUAL EVIDENCE
We need sufficient lingüistic competence
 Lingüistic competence: rules of language,
pronounciation, sentence formation, vocabulary=text as
coherent message

 Discursive competence: relate aspects of textual

meaning to specific communicative situations

 Sociocultural competence: ability to recognize the

context of interpersonal relations or the relation of the text to
other texts.
 Cotextual relations: ties between the
text and the physical or material
circumstances

 Intertextual relations: connections

between texts of a similar quality or status

 Extratextual relations: ideological

frame where the text can be located and made
relevant
 A kind of reading which allows us not only to
read, interpret and evaluate a text according
to our impressions, but also to explain how
and why these impressions have been
produced, and eventually discuss them with
other readers.

 CRITICAL COMMENTARY
 Our first contact with the text involves to find out
what the words in the text mean. (Recognition)
 If we read in a foreign language we may encounter
words we are not familiar with.

What do we do?
a) We normally don’t stop. Passing over them does
not prevent us from having a fairly accurate idea
of what the text mean

- the proccess of choice and ascription of meaning is automatic

and unconscious.
b) Look them up in a good dictionary

-but some expressions are not listed

-none of the options given seem to suit the words in the text

c) Pay attention to intratextual relations such as

semantic and functional relations with other words
in the text.

-the meaning of a word or expression will probalbly be

determined by its syntactic function

-a conscious use of these relations will help us to guess the

meanings
 FLUENCY means being able to read the text
accurately, quickly and with expression:

a) Depends on word recognition

b) Fluency also depends on the ability to group words
appropriately

Fluent readers recognize words quickly, but also know where to

place emphasis or pause during reading

C) Word recognition is not sufficient for fluent

reading. The reader must construct meaning.
 PROSODY
 study of those patterns resulting from
the existence of certain sound or
stress repetitions (considering the text as spoken
text)

Sound effects that contribute to the emotional aspects

of texts: Rhythm, rhyme, alliteration,
euphony, intonation

 Focus of study in POETRY

 Although many prosodic elements occur in
PROSE:
-rhythmic repetition of consonants (alliteration)
-rhythmic repetition of vowel sounds (assonance)
-repetition of syntactical and grammatical
patterns

“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green

aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled
among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a
great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex Marshes, fog on the
Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-
brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging
of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and
small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich
pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the
stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful
skipper….”
(Charles Dickens, Bleak House. 1853)
 Good readers have good vocabulary knowledge.

Techniques for Increasing Vocabulary:

-as much exposure as possible to texts, films, real
situations…in English.
-elaborate a list of new words you find and learn
when reading.
-use the dictionary (English –only dictionary)
-notice prefixes and suffixes to learn new words
(certain preffixes can change the meaning of words: legal,
illegal; known, unknown; thoughtless; un-, ir-, imp-))
(Examples taken from “Bread”, M. Atwood)
 Knowledge of the world : p. 52, “thin matress”,
“hot room”, walls made of dried earth”.. These
features imply some place in Africa.

 Cultural knowledge: p.52, “peanut butter on

bread” is delicious for North Americans; symbolic
meaning of bread in Christian cultures; bread as an
essential in our nutrition.

 Subject-matter knowledge
 COMPREHENSION is the process of
deriving meaning from texts.

 It involves:
-Thinking
-Reasoning
 Not a passive process; but an

ACTIVE
PROCESS
 Active engagement involves making
use or prior knowlege.

 Good readers are aware of how well

they understand a text while
reading—Reasoning

 Good readers take active steps to

overcome difficulties in
comprehension
 Strategies to improve text comprehension
and information use:

-pay atention to concepts and vocabulary used to

express them (bread as a concept linked to wealth,
poverty..: vocabulary such as famine, peanut butter,
honey, starving contribute to the symbolic meaning of
bread in the story )

-ask yourself questions about the text while reading

-identify main ideas

-use prior knowledge to make predictions

-summarize ideas in each section

-focus on vocabulary
 We read to: Learn
Find out information
To be entertained
To reflect

The purpose for reading is closely connected

to our motivation for reading.

It will also affect the way a book is read

MOTIVATING
ATTITUDE
When approaching a text:
 Think about your purpose for FIND ONE!!

 Adapt the way of reading to your purpose

(different attitutes for different types of
texts: dictionaries, news articles,
literature…)

 Make connections between reading and

your life or life in general.

 Try to enjoy reading and develop a love for

reading.
1. Read the text once through to get a gist of what
the speakers is saying.

2. Jot down your initial reactions to certain parts so

you can refer to them when writing.

3. Go back and read it again, underlining key words

and phrases and writing notes for yourself in
margins. Now it’s time to look words up in the
dictionary.

4. Read each passage three or four times (minimum

two).