Résumé:
Reading literary texts has always been acknowledged to be an important process in
learning English as a foreign language. The purpose of the present work is to demonstrate
the way Algerian master students can better read by shedding light on the impact of
schemata that can be cultural, linguistic or/and literary. This study explores such
parameters as important elements in identifying the non-native informants’ reading
comprehension skills in a controlled group. Moreover, the findings of such investigation
have been collected from twenty under- graduate students at Abdelhamid Ibn Badis
University of Mostaganem. This thesis is divided into five chapters; the first two chapters
highlight the relevance of the empirical studies related to literary reading by reviewing the
various approaches of reading theory as proposed by Widdowson (2000, 2007), McVee,
Dunsmore & Gavelek (2005), and Bernhardt (2005). I also depict the schema theory in
relation to reading with special reference to the reader’s socio-cultural background,
linguistic and literary competence. The third chapter discusses the pedagogical as well as
the theoretical framework of the study. It tries to provide an explanation for the theoretical
analysis with regard to the data collection instruments. In the fourth chapter, I present a
methodological description of the procedures adopted in conducting the present empirical
study. I also present the analysis of the contextual circumstances under which the students’
and the teachers’ questionnaires were conducted. Regarding the last chapter, it involves the
analysis of the collected data from the experiment. At this stage, the data collection
required a representation of some statistical and grading operations that are reported under
bar graphs, pie charts and tables. As a result, the analysis demonstrates that the students’
background knowledge in terms of cultural, linguistic and literary elements does not
necessarily boost the students’ reading comprehension of culturally unfamiliar short
fiction. In addition, the analysis also shows that the teachers are necessarily obliged to take
into account the students’ profile in their selection of literary texts. In addition, they are
EFL master students who are mature and able to deal with any foreign text. In fact, both
teachers of literature and their students assert that extensive reading plays a significant role
in enhancing the reader’s linguistic and cultural competences. By reading extensively and
discovering foreign cultures, the learner becomes more empathetic and tolerant vis-à-vis
these literary texts just as s/he becomes skilful in understanding and using the target
language. By doing so, the learner’s schemata are in continuous change and therefore
become dynamic. Consequently, they allow language learners to enrich and improve their
linguistic competence as well as their openness in order to familiarise themselves with
foreign cultures. Therefore, the results confirm Cook’s idea about the activation of the
mental processes in reading foreign texts. As a conclusion, this exploratory work
demonstrates that schema theory is not always necessary in the reading of literary texts in
the case of advanced learners in EFL context.
