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浅析不同体裁的会话是否会对英语专业学生的听力理解产生影响
摘要
本论文试图回答不同体裁对英
语学习者的听力理解是否产生影响的问题。本
研究以广州某普通高校
30
名英语专业本科生为实验对象，以全国高校英语专业四级
2010
年考试听力理解部分的三篇会话和六则新闻为听力测试材料。考查学习着对整
体问题和局部问题的理解结果。考查结果表明受试能更好地捕捉会话体裁的整体信
息，却能获取更多新闻体裁的局部信息。本研究认为，会话和新闻的体裁特点导致
受试在整体和局部问题上的听力理解发生偏差，证实了不同体裁的确会对英语专业
学生的听力理解产生影响。因此，本文建议英语教学中，教师帮助学习这熟悉各种
体
裁的典型特点，以便产生更好的理解结果。
关键词
英语听力理解；
体裁；听力输入；
新闻体裁；会话体裁
Abstract
In order to answer the question “Does
genre of the listening input affect the
listening
comprehension?”,
the
study
examined
participants?
performanc
e
on
the
global
questions and local questions by taking
30 English majors from a university in Guangzhou
as
the
participants
and
taking
3
conversation
and
6
pieces
of
news
broadcast
extracted
from the listening
comprehension part of TEM-4 2010 as the listening
input of the test.
The
result
showed
that
participants
had
better
performance
on
the
global
questions
of
conversation while they had better
results in answering the local questions.
Therefore, this
study claimed that the
distinct generic characteristics of conversation
and news broadcast
led
to
the
deviation
of
participants?
listening
comprehension
on
the
global
and
local
questions. That was to
say, genres had effect on English major?s
listening comprehension.
Hence,
it
was
suggested
that
in
English
teaching,
teachers
should
help
learners
to
learn
more
knowledge
about
the
typical
generic
characteristics
of
different
genres
so
that
learners can comprehend different
genres better.
Key
Words
English
listening
comprehension;
genre;
listening
input;
news;
conversation
第
2
页
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16
页
CONTENTS
Abstract in Chinese
Abstract in English ...................
..................................................
.......................................... 2
1. Introduction .......................
..................................................
............................................. 1
2. Literature Review ..................
..................................................
......................................... 4
2.1 The Definition of Genre ...........
..................................................
.................................... 4
2.2 The Genre theory
.......
..................................................
..................................................
. 3
2.3 Previous Research on Genre and
Listening Comprehension
......................................... 4
3. The Study
.
...
..................................................
..................................................
.................. 5
3.1 Research
Questions ........................................
..................................................
.............. 5
3.2 Participants .....
..................................................
..................................................
............ 5
3.3 Instruments ........
..................................................
..................................................
......... 6
3.4 Procedures ............
..................................................
..................................................
...... 7
3.4.1 Pre-test
.
..........................................
..................................................
............................ 7
3.4.2
Test
.
......................
..................................................
..................................................
.... 8
3.5 Data Collection and Results
..................................................
......................................... 8
3.5.1 The test questions on TEM-4
listening comprehension
.............................................. 8
4. Discussions and Implication
< br>.
...................................
..................................................
..... 11
4.1 Discussions
...
..................................................
..................................................
............ 11
4.2 Implication
.
..................................
..................................................
............................... 17
5.
Conclusions ......................................
..............................................
错误！未定义书签。
References ............................
..................................................
............................................
17
第
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页
1. Introduction
?Genre? is
originally a French word means ?kind? and ?type?.
In English, the term
refers to
classification of the literary works. In order to
achieve certain social purpose, a
genre
of text has its own typical and particular
structure and textual feature. That is to
say, the social function of the genre
of a text can be reflected in the macrostructure
of
the
text.
Is
it
possib
le
that
genre
is
among
the
factors
that
affect
English
learners?
listening comprehension since the
listening process
involves the
“to
p-down
process
”
which
deals with the information process of the
macrostructure? Besides, according to
“
genre analysis
theory
”
(
秦秀白
, 1997:8-15)
, the typical generic characteristics of a
genre of text consist of three factors
include the linguistic factor, the generic factors
and
the register factors. And the three
factors should be paid attention to when analyzing
a
genre of text. As each genre has its
own particular generic characteristics, do the
typical
generic
characteristics
of
listening
input
influence
English
learners?
listening
comprehension?
The main concern of this paper is to
answer the question “does genre of
liste
ning
input affect the
listening comprehension?”.
The
rest
of
this
thesis
consists
of
four
parts:
Section
Two
is
a
related
literature
review;
Section
Three
describes
the
methodology
and
result
of
data
analysis;
Section
Four
presents
the
discussions
and
implications;
and
the
last
section
is
devoted
to
conclusions.
2. Literature Review
2.1 The Definition of Genre
As the genre theory did not arouse
linguistic scholars
?
interest to employ this term in
the
field
of
discourse
analysis
until
1970
?
s,
the
definition
of
genre
has
not
come
to
an
agreement.
There
are
two
schools
studying
the
genre
theory,
the
?
Swalesian
School
?
which is represented by J M. Swales,
and the
?
Australian
School
?
which is represented
by
J
R.
Martin
(
秦秀白
2000:42-46)
.
Based
on
the
study
of
many
linguists,
Chinese
linguists
made
an
interpretation:
First,
types
of
spoken
and
written
discourse
are
第
4
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页
classified
into
different
genres
according
to
the
social
communicative
purpose
of
the
social
intercourse.
Second,
the
pattern
of
one
genre
is
variable.
Third,
the
social
communicative purpose retrains the
content and the format of the text. And the
content
and the format of the text are
conventional, stable, repetitive and habitual.
Fourth, genre
is
closely
related
to
cultural
background
and
contextual
configuration.
Under
certain
cultural context,
the communicative purpose of a social intercourse
is usually achieved
by several
conventional stages, the characteristic of one
particular genre will be presented
in
the
particular
structure
and
the
language
style
which
are
determined
by
its
social
communicative
purpose. Hence to attain certain social
communicative purpose, we have
to
construct a particular discourse in typical
structure and textual configuration in order
to make the relevant community
understand.
（梁文花、秦洪武
,
2009:44-48
）
2.2
The Genre theory
Under
certain
cultural
context,
in
order
to
achieve
the
communicative
purpose,
a
social intercourse is
constructed in certain conventional stages and in
particular language
style.
Hence
it
is
necessary
to
focus
on
the
macrostructure,
the
textual
features
or
the
rhetorical
devices and the register of a genre of discourse.
According to Qin Xiubai (
秦秀
白
，
1997
：
8-15),
the
analysis
of
a
genre
of
discourse
should
be
analyzed
from
the
following
three
aspects.
Firstly,
textual
analysis
such
as
linguistic
description
and
the
communicator?s
appropriate
employment
of
language.
Secondly,
the
analysis
of
the
context
of
situation
which
consists
of
field,
tenor
and
mode
of
the
text.
As
a
particular
genre
of
discourse
is
produced
under
certain
context,
one
would
produce
discourse
in
tactful language according to
the social
reality.
Thirdly,
the analysis of
the ?moves? that
construct
the
macrostructure
of
a
genre.
According
to
Bhatia,
an
application
letter
in
English obviously is a
particular genre, and in order to gain the
opportunity to get the job,
the
candidate should constructed the letter in certain
stable moves that are accepted and
understood
by
the
employee
and
the
candidate
(Bhatia
1993,
qtd.
in
秦秀白
1997).
Hence, it is known that a particular
genre is constructed in certain typical
‘
moves
’
.
In this paper, Qin Xiubai?s viewpoint
will be employed to analyze the test materials
which
contain
the
genres
of
news
broadcast
and
conversation
for
it
emphasizes
on
the
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5
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页
whole analysis
of the text of one particular genre.
2.3 Previous Research on Genre and
Listening Comprehension
There
are
a
few
studies
concerning
the
influence
of
different
genres
on
English
learners?
listening
comprehension.
Elana
Shohamy
and
Ofra
Inbar
(1991:23
-40)
inves
tigated the effect of
both texts and question types on participants?
scores of listening
comprehension tests
by taking 150 EFL learners who were from Hebrew as
the subjects.
The
test
material
consisted
of
three
text
types,
i.e.
news
broadcast,
mini-lecture
and
consultative dialogue,
which were of the same topic and vocabulary size
but the different
literary style. The
consultative dialogue was oral-oriented and was
characterized by simple
expression,
spontaneous language and many redundancies and
repetitions, while the news
broadcast
was literature-oriented and was characterized by
complex sentences, specialized
language
and a lack of redundancies, and the reporter did
not interact with the audience
(Berne,
1992:
6-7).
It
was
found
out
that
the
degree
of
ora
lity
affected
participants?
performance. The result showed the more
one text contained listenable features, the better
the
subjects
performed.
That
was
to
say,
news
broadcast
was
the
most
difficult
to
comprehend for it was literature-
oriented, followed by mini-lecture and followed
then by
consultative dialogue.
Moreover, the questions were classified into
global and local type to
explore how
the question types affected the participants?
performance. The result showed
that
local
questions
were
easier
than
global
questions
because
it
was
more
difficult
to
deduce and construct the whole meaning
of the text than to locate the detail information
in
the text.
The
subjects
of
Shohamy?s
experiment
were
Hebrew.
Hebrew
shares
the
similar
language
system
with
English,
so
the
difference
between
Hebrew
and
English
is
lower
than
that
between
Chinese
and
English.
Therefore,
in
order
to
check
whether
the
result
would
be
the
same
as
Shohamy?s,
this
paper
aims
at
the
investigation
of
the
effect
of
different
genres
on the listening
comprehension
of English majors who
are from China,
and the
question types are global and local questions just
as Shohamy?s.
3. The Study
In
this study, an experimental design is used to test
the effect of the genres of news
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页
broadcast
and
conversation
on
30
English
majors
?
listening
comprehension.
And
the
connection between the generic
characteristics of news broadcast and conversation
and the
factors lead to the deviation
of English majors listening comprehension will be
verified. In
this section, the
participants, instruments, procedures and data
collection and analysis will
be
described.
3.1 Research Questions
From Section Two, it is obvious that
different genres have their own characteristics
due
to
their
social
communicative
purpose.
And
the
research
question
addressed
by
the
study is as follow:
Do
the
participants
have
different
performance
on
different
generic
input
of
the
listening comprehension
test?
3.2 Participants
The
participants of this study are English majors from
Grade 2009 of the School of
Foreign
Language, Guangzhou University. A total of 30
students are chosen to participate
in
the
listening
test
because
they
got
the
scores
from
60
to
65
in
the
pre-test,
which
qualifies
the participants
are at
the same level.
And
as they
are
all at
the average level,
more
typical mistakes can be seen in their performance,
and it helps to study the research
questions.
3.3 Instruments
The
pre-
test
material
is
in
fact
the
final
examination
of
?An
Integrated
English
Course? which is the
English course
for English majors of
Guangzhou University. Students
are
asked to finish multiple choice questions of the
problems include general knowledge
and
reading comprehension and open-ended questions of
four types of problems include
paraphrase,
correcting
errors,
translation
and
writing
in
the
final
examination.
The
total
score of the
examination is 100, the multiple choice questions
worth 40 points (1 point per
multiple-
choice
question)
and
the
open-ended
questions
such
as
translation
and
writing
worth
60
points
(20
points
per
open-ended
question).
The
aim
of
the
examination
is
to
check up on English majors?
comprehensive ability of English, so it is a
standard criterion
to evaluate
students? English level in order to choose the
participants.
The
test
material
is
three
conversations
and
six
pieces
of
news
extracted
from
the
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页
listening comprehension part in TEM-4
(Test for English Major-4) in 2010. TEM-4 is of
great
significance
to
English
majors
because
it
is
an
examination
officially
accepted
by
China Education
Min
istry and the aim of it is examine
English majors? capacity for overall
English skills and mastering of grammar
structure and vocabulary. Participants are asked
to finish the multiple choice questions
of the conversation section and the news broadcast
sect
ion of ?Listening
Comprehension? and there were both 10 questions in
news broadcast
and conversation. But
only 8 of these 10 questions would be chosen as
the global and local
questions. And in
?conversation? section, participants will totally
listen to 3 c
onversation
items and they will finish 3 or 4
questions that are based on one conversation item
at each
time. Then in ?news broadcast?
section, participants will listen to total 6 news
items and
they will finish 1 or 2
questions that are based on one news item at each
time.
The
global
question
refers
to
those
which
participants
need
to
answer
by
understanding the main idea and the
causation of the conversation or news items. And a
global question may like ?What is the
news item about?. But as there is not a
typical global
question
in
the
questions
of
conversation,
a
why-question
is
chosen
to
be
the
global
question
of
conversation
as
participants
had
to
deduce
the
answer
according
to
their
summary
of the information they got. And the local
question is those which participants
need to answer by locating the detail
information and recognizing the information of the
conversation
or
news
items,
and
it
may
like
?How
many
people
were
rescued
from
the
apartment building?.
Hence in this paper, each 7 questions will
be
employed as the local
questions of conversation and news
broadcast and each 1 question will be employed as
the
global
questions
of
conversation
and
news
broadcast.
The
measurement
is
to
count
the
total
number of the participants? correct answers to the
lo
cal and global questions.
3.4 Procedures
The test is
consisted of two parts. In the first part, a pre-
test is done to decide who
will be the
participants so that the participants are at the
same level; the second part is the
test
about
how
the
texts
of
new
s
broadcast
and
conversation
affect
the
participants?
listening
comprehension.
3.4.1 Pre-test
The aim of this part is to evaluate the
students? English level to determine which one
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can be the participants of the test.
Because the typical mistakes are more tend to be
seen in
average
students.
And
due
to
the
practical
factors,
the
results
of
English
majors?
final
examination were
employed as the criterion to decide who would be
the participants for it
is
authoritative.
With
class
for
the
unit,
all
of
the
English
majors
in
Grade
2009
were
required to have the final examination
on a particular day at the end of the term. During
the final examination, the participants
had to finish the exam independently and there
were
two
teachers
monitoring
one
class
to
have
examination.
And
the
duration
of
the
examination was 2 hours.
Moreover the exam papers were revised by the
English teachers
of Guangzhou
University according to the model answer given by
the teacher who set the
exam papers.
3.4.2 Test
The
test
was
conducted
in
the
form
of
quiz
in
a
random
ordinary
classroom.
The
researcher
firstly
copied
the
clips
of
the
3
conversation
items
and
6
news
items
to
a
personal
computer and then
brought
the computer to
the
classroom.
The 30 participants
were
gathered
and
instructed
to
listen
to
the
test
material
carefully.
Before
that,
the
participants
were
issued
the
answer
sheets,
and
then
they
were
required
to
go
over
the
questions on the answer sheets first.
After that, the researcher played the clips of the
test
material one by one. All of the
clips were played once only. And after each clip
was played,
one minute was given to
participants to answer a series of questions based
on the clip of
conversation or news
broadcast. Then the clips were played in order
until the tape came to
an end. And the
participants finished the questions independently
and were monitored by
the researcher
and another person.
After
the participants
finished, they were
required to
hand in their answer sheets
and the researcher graded the answer sheets of the
participants
according
to
the
model
answer
from
the
exercise
book
?Tests
with
Advice
on
How
to
Prepare
TEM-
4?.
3.5 Data
Collection and Results
3.5.1 The test questions on TEM-4
listening comprehension
There
were
7
local
questions
and
1
global
question
in
the
test
material
of
conversation and news broadcast.
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