LEITURA DE TEXTOS ACADÊMICOS EM INGLÊS: UMA QUESTÃO ...

ABSTRACTACADEMIC ENGLISH TEXTS READING: A MATTER OF VOCABULARYOR BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE?Author: Neivo ZagoAdvisor: Désirée Motta-RothIt is taken for granted that reading is an important linguistic skill usedby students to perform their academic tasks. Specially in the 80sresearchers have emphasized the importance of the background knowledgefor meaning production in reading. Authors like RUMELHART (1995) haveconceived background knowledge as cognitive schemata based on thereader’s previous experiences. Later, research like the one developed bySCARAMUCCI (1995), who has emphasized the importance of lexicalknowledge as fundamental to the construction of meaning in reading tasks inEnglish as a Foreign Language. More recently MOITA LOPES (1996) hasemphasized the importance of systemic and schematic knowlege formeaning production in reading. Considering these developments in theresearch on reading, this work aims to investigate to what extent thelinguistic knowledge (vocabulary) and previous knowledge (content andformal schemata) influence comprehension in reading in English forAcademic Purposes in three subjects with different proficience levels: lessproficient, intermediate and more proficient. The three subjects were giventhree texts (abstracts), each one related to their three specific areas and twotexts about general knowledge. Data were collected using verbal protocols(think aloud) technique and comprehension exercises such as summaries,