Frame Theory and Its Application to Discourse-based English Listening Teaching

Abstract

Cognitive frame is a representation of the network of human experience and particular elements in a frame will be brought into salience in a given scene, which manifests the effectiveness and economy of information transmission. Encyclopedic knowledge stored as knowledge frames in the mind and discourse awareness are two important foundations for discourse-based listening training. By employing frames in teaching of discourse-based listening comprehension and constructing discourse on the mode “thematic frame plus several sub-frames”, this paper will explore how important frames are to teaching of English listening comprehension and how to cultivate students’ discourse awareness in listening teaching. Several practical methods for improving students’ discourse awareness including the recognition of the overall discourse frame and identification of cohesive and coherent devices, as well as some listening strategies such as information prediction and keywords location, have been provided.