John G. Barnitz

Toward Understanding the Effects of Cross-Cultural Schemata and Discourse Structure on Second Language Reading Comprehension

Research on second culture and second language reading comprehension is reviewed to support the claim that second language reading is an interactive process, involving the interrelationship of cultural schemata and discourse structure. Studies on content schemata include investigations of the roles of cultural knowledge and second language proficiency in comprehension. Studies on discourse processing include linguistic descriptions of ethnolinguistic discourse patterns (contrastive rhetoric), as well as psycholinguistic comprehension studies on expository prose, story structure, and cohesion. This multidisciplinary review functions as an argument for the roles of cultural schemata and discourse structure in an interactive model of first and second language reading.

ASPECTS OF SCHEMATA AND SYNTAX IN FIFTH GRADE CHILDREN'S INFERENTIAL READING COMPREHENSION OF CAUSAL RELATIONS

Seventy‐five urban middle class fifth grade children of average and above average reading ability served as subjects in an experiment designed to determine the effects of passage content (schemata) and syntactic structure (clause order) on inferential comprehension of causal structures. Subjects were presented with twelve passages varying in semantic level (easy vs. hard, based on congruence with childhood schemata background) and clause order for the target causal structure (cause‐effect vs. effect‐cause). Subjects were asked to specify the implied meaning of the target structure. An analysis of variance for the randomized block factorial design yielded significant effects for subject variability and semantic content. Although the syntactic variable was not significant, proportions correct suggested a trend favoring the clause order of cause‐effect. An interaction between the variables was not confirmed. The findings are discussed in terms of the roles of schemata and syntax in an interactive model of re...