On Enhancing Students’ Discourse Competence in Reading
Journal: Journal of Higher Education Research DOI: 10.32629/jher.v2i1.252
Abstract
Discourse competence, as important index in discourse analysis, plays an important role in developing learners’ receptive and productive skills in English. With good discourse competence, learners can understand spoken or written texts better, both at the local and global levels. Besides, they can produce more cohesive discourse to promote their speaking and writing abilities. However, English teaching classroom often focuses heavily on linguistic competence, weighing too much on vocabulary, and grammar. This paper aims to explore the relationship between cohesion and coherence and how to develop students’ discourse competence in reading.
Keywords
discourse competence, cohesion and coherence, reading
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[2] Alderson J.C. Assessing Reading. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Sprachen; 2005.
[3] Bamberg B. What makes a text coherent? College Composition and Communication. 1983; 34 (4): 417–429.
[4] Bartlett F.C. Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1932.
[5] Beck I.L., McKeown M.G., Omanson R.C., Pople M.T. Improving the comprehensibility of stories: The effects of revisions that improve coherence. Reading Research Quarterly. 1985; 19(3):263.
[6] Brown G., Yule G. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1983.
[7] Bublitz W. Cohesion and Coherence [A]. In Zienkowski J., Östman J., Verschueren J. (eds.). Discursive Pragmatics [C]. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company; 2011.
[8] Canale M., Swain M. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics. 1980; 1(1): 1–47.
[9] Carrell P.L. Cohesion is not coherence. TESOL Quarterly. 1982; 16(4): 479-488.
[10] Carrell P.L. The effects of rhetorical organization on ESL readers. TESOL Quarterly. 1984; 18(3): 441-469.
[11] Carrell P.L. Facilitating ESL reading by teaching text structure. TESOL Quarterly. 1985; 19(4): 727-752.
[12] Cheng X., Steffensen M.S. Metadiscourse: A technique for improving student writing. Research in the Teaching of English. 1996; 30(2):149-181.
[13] Common Core State Standards Initiative. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Available from: http://www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/ELA_Standards1.pdf.
[14] Cook G. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1989.
[15] Council of Europe. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Available from: https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97.
[16] Grabe W., Kaplan R.B. Theory and Practice of Writing: An Applied Linguistics Perspective. Harlow: Pearson Education; 1996.
[17] Gundel J.K. Left Dislocation and The Role of Topic-comment Structure in Linguistic Theory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press; 1975
[18] Halliday M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold; 1985.
[19] Halliday M.A.K., Hasan R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman; 1976.
[20] Halliday M.A.K., Matthiessen C., Halliday M. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Routledge; 2014.
[21] Hatch, E. Discourse and Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1992.
[22] Hoey M. Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1991.
[23] Kopple W.J.V. Something old, something new: Functional sentence perspective. Research in the Teaching of English. 1983; 17(1): 85-99.
[24] Lee I. Teaching coherence to ESL students: A classroom inquiry. Journal of Second Language Writing. 2002; 11(2): 135-159.
[25] McCarthy M. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991.
[26] McCutchen D., Perfetti C.A. Coherence and connectedness in the development of discourse production. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse. 1982; 2(1-3): 113–140.
[27] Minsky M. A Framework for Representing Knowledge [A]. In Winston P. H. (ed.). The Psychology of Computer Vision [C]. New York: McGraw-Hill Book; 1975.
[28] Nuttall C. Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Heinemann Educational; 1982.
[29] Nuttall C. Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Macmillan Publishers; 2005.
[30] Oshima A., Hogue A. English Academic Writing. Harlow: Pearson Education;1991.
[31] Roller C.M. Commentary: The interaction between knowledge and structure variables in the processing of expository prose. Reading Research Quarterly. 1990; 25(2): 79-89.
[32] Seidlhofer B., Widdowson H. Coherence in Summary: The Contexts of Appropriate Discourse [A]. In Bublitz W., Lenk U., Ventola E. (eds.). Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse[C]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; 1999..
[33] Thornbury S. Beyond the Sentence: Introducing Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Macmillan; 2005.
[34] Van Dijk T.A., Kintsch W., Van Dijk T.A. Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York: Academic Press; 1983.
[35] Widdowson H.G. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1978.
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