背景知識與英文閱讀能力對臺灣大學生學術英語摘要能力的影響

The Effects of Background Knowledge and L2 Reading Proficiency on Taiwanese University Students' Summarization Performance

本文從認知的角度出發，探討閱讀理解中較低層次的語言知識與較高層次的背景知識對臺灣大學生英語閱讀的影響。尤其在兩種知識的交互作用下，檢視學生閱讀與學科內容相關的英語文章後撰寫摘要之表現。七十一位大學生分別具有高低不同之英語與背景知識，經由托福閱讀測驗與專家設計之知識測驗分組後，以統計工具分析英文閱讀能力與背景知識對摘要擷取能力的影響。統計結果顯示，不論是英語閱讀能力或相關背景知識的高低，均對學生以母語撰寫之摘要表現造成影響。但背景知識程度的高低，對摘要表現的預測力勝過英語能力，背景知識在學術英語閱讀的作用不可或缺；兩種變數於統計結果上並無交互作用，顯示兩種知識彼此間無法互補。此外，本研究結果也發現大學生的閱讀能力不必然受限於所屬之科系，英文系學生在其他領域的知識程度可能超越該領域之大學生；而非英文主修之學生亦可能具有高英語閱讀能力。整體而言，大學生在學術英語文章的摘要撰寫表現上普遍不佳，缺乏建構整體主要概念的能力。依據本文的研究結果，並對大學生閱讀英文與摘要寫作訓練提出相關建議。

Undertaken from a cognitive perspective, this study investigates how lower level processing (L2 linguistic knowledge) and higher level processing (background knowledge) influence English reading comprehension of university EFL learners in Taiwan. In particular, the study examines the bilateral effects of these two knowledge bases on the students' performance of a summary writing after reading an article in English which contained subject matter information. A TOEFL reading proficiency test accompanied by a background knowledge test developed by field experts were used to measure the two variables. Seventy-one university students who exhibited different levels of L2 reading proficiency and background knowledge participated in the study. The effects of linguistic proficiency vs background knowledge were scrutinized through statistical measures. The analysis revealed that the level of English proficiency and background knowledge both affected the participants' performances on summary writing into L1; however, the role of background knowledge, being a more powerful predictor of performance, was an integral component of comprehension in academic reading. The concomitant effects of these two variables were not observed, suggesting one knowledge base could not compensate for deficiencies in the other. In addition, the study indicated that university students' understanding of subject matters may extend beyond their own disciplinary area, as English majors might be equipped with more background knowledge than their peers majoring in that specialized discipline; likewise, non-English majors might outperform their English major counterparts in English reading proficiency test. In general, the students performed relatively poor in summary writing since they failed to build a conceptual synthesis based on the reading article. Suggestions toward improvements on English reading and summary writing are proposed for EFL university students.