The impact of coherence relations on text comprehension of Turkish EFL readers / Bağdaşıklık ilişkilerinin yabancı dil öğrenen Türk okuyucuların İngilizce metinleri anlama yeteneğine etkisi

Abstract

For readers to successfully comprehend a text, they must be able to establish a coherent representation of its meaning and the construction of such coherent text representation assumes the existence of an ability to recognize coherence relations that bind discourse units together. These relations can be implicit or relatively explicit, marked by a variety of linguistic devices such as logical connectives and signaling phrases. The present study aims to find out to what extent L2 readers are able to benefit from such coherence relations: Are discourse or coherence relations salient or accessible enough for readers to facilitate comprehension? Do the readers recognize implicitly signaled or un-signaled relations during the process of online comprehension? Can the readers transfer their knowledge of local coherence to global coherence at the macro level of discourse? Through a mixed method research design, both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained through reading comprehension and discourse coherence tasks administered to 26 EFL freshman students enrolled at an English teacher education program. The relevant examples from a single test are discussed in relation to the recognition of coherence relations in text both at the local and global level. Thus, the difficulties students encounter in making sense of the text by the use of coherence relations are analyzed. The results suggest that coherence relations, in the absence of explicit marking, are not easily accessible to L2 readers. Particularly, the less skilled L2 readers experience problems in recognizing un-signaled relations unless they are aided by background knowledge, or previous content schemata. It seems that it is rather difficult to transfer knowledge of coherence relations at the local level to larger discourse level involving the whole text.

Keywords

• Coherence relations, Rhetorical structure theory, reading comprehension, EFL reading skills

(BAĞDAŞIKLIK İLİŞKİLERİNİN YABANCI DİL ÖĞRENEN TÜRK OKUYUCULARIN İNGİLİZCE METİNLERİ ANLAMA YETENEĞİNE ETKİSİ)

Abstract

Okuyucuların bir metni tamamen anlayıp kavrayabilmeleri için, zihinlerinde metne dair tutarlı ve bağdaşık bir anlam şeması oluşturmaları gerekir ve bunu yapabilmek için de okuyucuların metindeki her bir söylem alt birimini birbirine bağlayan bağdaşıklık ilişkilerini farkedip görebilmeleri gereklidir. Bu ilişkiler bazen örtülü bazen de bir dizi bağlaç veya ipucu tamlamalar yoluyla nispeten daha açık biçimde işaretlenmiş olabilir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, yabancı dil okurlarının bu bağdaşıklık ilişkilerinden okuma ve anlama esnasında ne kadar faydalanabildiklerini ortaya koymaktır. Acaba bağdaşıklık ilişkileri okuyucuların anlama sürecini kolaylaştıracak kadar ulaşılabilir ve kolay bulunabilir unsurlar mıdır? Okuyucular okuma anında örtülü ve açıkça işaretlenmiş bağdaşıklık ilişkilerini farkedebilmekte midirler? Okuyucular mikro düzeydeki bağdaşıklık ilişkilerini makro düzeye aktarma yeteneğine sahip midirler? Karışık araştırma deseni çerçevesinde, okuma ve söylem bağdaşıklığı görevleri aracılığıyla İngilizce öğretmenliği programına kayıtlı 26 birinci sınıf öğrencisinden veri toplanmıştır. Burada sadece bir metine dayalı okuma sorularından seçilen bazı örnekler mikro ve makro metin düzeyinde bağdaşıklık ilişkilerinin tespit edilebilirliği bakımından irdelenmiştir. Böylelikle, okuyucuların bağdaşıklık ilişkilerinden faydalanarak metni anlamaya çalışmaları esnasında tecrübe ettikleri zorluklar incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın sonuçlarına göre, bağdaşıklık ilişkileri açık bir biçimde işaretlenmemişse, okuyucuların bu ilişkileri Yrd.Doç. Dr., Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, [e-mail] tespit etmesi pek kolay olmamıştır. Özellikle de okuma becerileri nispeten daha zayıf olan okuyucular açıkça işaret edilmeyen ilişkileri -konuya dair arka plan bilgisi ve zihinsel şablonları olmadığı sürece- tespit edememişlerdir. Öyle görünüyor ki lokal düzeydeki bağdaşıklık ilişkilerinden edinilen bilgiyi makro metin düzeyine aktarabilmek oldukça zordur.

Keywords

• bağdaşıklık ilişkileri, Retorik Yapı Kuramı, okuma-anlama, yabancı dil olarak ingilizce okuma becerileri

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