2。 Literary Research

2。1 What is reading?

    2。1。1 The definition of reading

In order to know the correlation between the comprehension of demonstrative pronouns and English reading, we should first know what  reading is and what demonstrative pronouns are。 Different linguists gave various definitions。 Zahra Akbari (2014) defined the reading comprehension as the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately。 According to common assumptions in the L1 and L2 reading literature, Rumelhart (1977) said that text reading is an interactional process between a reader and the text。 Evelien van Wingerden(2016) defined reading comprehension essentially a product of word decoding and listening comprehension。 “For word decoding the reader must merge letter-sound combinations into words, which requires a basis of underlying linguistic skills。” And the primary goal of reading is to obtain some kind of information from a text, whether it is to search for specific information, to learn from texts, or for general comprehension (Grabe & Stoller, 2002)。 

    2。1。2 Factors influencing reading

The reading process has been described as dynamic in that reader-related factors such as background knowledge, aptitude, and memory constraints interact with textual factors (e。g。,text structure, length, lexical and linguistic complexity) as readers construct a mental representation or comprehend a text (Michael J。 Leeser，2007)。 Linguists had done a heck of researches about these factors, so I will make conclusion from several aspects。论文网

    A) Textural factors

Textural factors such as vocabulary knowledge, second language grammar, can influence the process of reading comprehension, especially in foreign language (Funda Olmez, 2016)。 Each of them has an irreplaceable function in reading comprehension。 In the past few years, linguists and educators had done a plenty of researches to find the deep relationship between them and reading, and their correlation with each other。

Vocabulary knowledge that is regarded as the basic of fluent reading, is very important for L2 reading comprehension。 After his experiment, Batia Laufer (2010) draw a conclusion that small increments of vocabulary knowledge contribute to reading comprehension even though they hardly improve text coverage。 He also said the coverage of 98% is necessary for reading comprehension。 Schmitt&Grabe (2011)’ research also show the same result。 They find that there is a relatively linear relationship between vocabulary coverage and reading comprehension。 Nation(2001) also concluded that when reading authentic texts, more vocabulary is needed。 As pointed out by Van Zeeland&Schmitt (2013), how much lexical coverage, the amounts of lexical items known by reader, is needed for reading comprehension。 In Sidek &Rahim (2015)’ test, they found out evidence to support that a reader’s level of vocabulary knowledge is one of the elements that plays an impacting role in determining reading comprehension performance in that language。 

     And for grammar, there are pros and cons from different linguists。 Zahra Akbari (2014) noted that when learners learn how to manipulate syntactic structures in a text while reading a text, their comprehension is greatly promoted。 Except for facilitating reading comprehension, it also allowed them to have detailed reading comprehension, deepen their understanding and increase their reading speed。 Consequently, they will have a sense of self satisfaction, enjoy reading English texts and are ultimately encouraged to follow up the process of learning English。 So we can see that the role of grammar is very significant in reading comprehension。 And Zahra Akbari (2014) also pointed out “if language teachers aim at helping students read better and comprehend faster, they are advised to increase the grammatical knowledge through perse means such as focus on form and explicit instruction”。 Naama Friedmann et al (2011) had studied the effect of syntax on reading in neglect dyslexia and then they noted that the syntactic knowledge of the readers with neglect dyslexia modulated their sentence reading。 But they found that syntactic and lexical-syntactic requirements of the sentence will let disabled readers spend amount of time on reading again and again until the requirements were met。 Shiotsu and Weir (2007) said that “syntactic knowledge remains one of the deciding factors in the performance on texts reading comprehension [especially] for learners up to certain level" 。 But no matter how grammar influence reading, it is definitely that it do have influence on reading comprehension。