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This study posits a teaching relationship between iconic media and building background information in reading comprehension by first ascertaining the role of background knowledge in the reading comprehension of short conversations. The theory of three functions - Interpersonal, Textual and Experiential - of "clause" in the functional grammar (Halliday, 1985; Thompson, 1996) is utilized to infer from the data the role of background knowledge subjects were able to bring to their reading comprehension. Olson and Bruners (1974) media theory is used in defining the expected role of iconic media in the teaching and learning of reading comprehension in English. Subjects were 46 office workers and graduate students who each read ten short incomplete conversations and were asked to make each conversation complete by choosing, from three options, a correct response for the second speaker to the first speaker's utterance. An analysis of subjects responses in terms of functional grammar theory indicates that the subjects' inappropriate or lack of background knowledge appeared to be the major cause for choosing an incorrect response. These findings suggest that the role of background knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension. Some uses of iconic media to assist in building background knowledge are suggested. |
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