Introduction
There are many factors affecting listening comprehension of college students. The most important two are background knowledge and finding relevant links between an oral text and known knowledge. The former can be本论文由英语论文网/ explained by the schemata theory and the latter by the relevance theory. Topic familiarity and language level have a profound effect on listening comprehension. These two factors can be explained by schemata theory and relevance theory. Besides, college students’ listening comprehension may be affected by the difficulty of an oral material itself, the speed and sound of language, the vocabulary accumulated and so on. Due to young people’s own characteristics, such as numbness, laziness, etc, psychological factors and their learning habit also exert great influence on their listening comprehension.
Ⅱ. Schemata Theory and Listening Comprehension
A. Introduction of Schemata
1. Definition of Schemata
Schemata are the structure of background knowledge that a learner has acquired previously (Carrel ＆ Eisterhold, 1983). A schema is used to demonstrate stereotypical knowledge that people acquire from time to time (Schank ＆ Abelson, 1977). Schemata are a series of events, situations, relations, objects, etc. (Eysenck ＆ Keane, 1990). From the above definitions of schemata, it is not hard for us to draw a conclusion that schemata actually refers to background knowledge or knowledge bases stored in people’s brains.
2. Features of Schemata
Schemata have specific instantiations. According to Howard, when a schemata finds specific exemplars in reality, it is believed to have been activated (黄子东,1998). Schemata can be made up of many sub-schemata and be a part of other schemata. Schemata represent knowledge in any way. These features tell us that schemata have a certain relationship to background knowledge. The most important of all is that “schemata have a deep influence on ‘world perception’ and ‘language understanding’ (Howard, 1987).
B. The Model of Schemata Listening Comprehension
It is based upon the development of “information processing”, which mainly refers to bottom-up processing and top-down processing. The former is a process of using basic language knowledge, such as vocabulary, syntax, 本论文由英语论文网/grammar, etc. to understand the meaning of an oral text. The latter is a process of employing world information, context situation, background knowledge and common sense to guess and get the meaning of a colloquial text. The model of schemata listening comprehension admits that the listening comprehension process is a process of combining these two information-handling methods, but it focuses on top-down processing and the function of listeners’ fixed background knowledge, the activation and instantiation of schemata on listening comprehension (黄子东, 1998).
C. The Influence of Schemata Theory on Listening Comprehension
Schemata or background knowledge play an important role in listening comprehension; they can accelerate the listening process, especially when they are exemplified or instantiated. The listening comprehension process is not simply a process of decoding the literal meaning of a text, it is rather that of actively exchanging the input information and the stored knowledge or schemata in listeners’ brains (贺玲, 2017). The meaning of a text is the result of collision between students’ world knowledge and the text’s in，英语论文网站，英语论文 |
