A RESEARCH INTO THE EFFECT OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE ON BUSINESS ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION

With the arrival of the new millennium,the demand fortalented people with both professional knowledge and excellentlanguage abilities is getting stronger and stronger.For business major students,reading is paramount inBusiness English teaching and learning.And their reading abilityis often assessed by a text of reading comprehension.However,from my experience as a college teacher ofBusiness English,I have noticed some problems among studentswho have little knowledge of business.They seem to readBusiness English materials at a slower rate and with lessunderstanding than general English materials.Then there is the question:is Business English reading"simply"a problem of language competence? Or are there anyother more important factors?This article is an investigation into the effect of backgroundknowledge on Business English reading comprehension.Thestudy attempts to assess to what extent L2 readers might beaffected because of their lack of a background schematapresupposed by the author by comparing the test results of twopassages comparable in language lightness or heaviness.Morecomparable passages like these can be used in investigating intothe rival effects of background knowledge and linguisticcompetence.The implications of comprehension theory for L2pedagogy are discussed and suggestions for Business Englishteaching is put forward.