CONTRIBUTION OF GRAPHO-PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS TO READING COMPREHENSION: A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

The choice of the présent subject matter attempts to rehabilitate the contribution of grapho-phonological analysis to reading compréhension in English as a Foreign Language (E.F.L.). So far, crédit has been granted to the only contribution of syntactic and semantic information provided by written discourses to reading compréhension in a teaching situation. Consequently, the latter contribution has been much described, analyzed and exploited in professional literature. The former received little attention. Rarely has it been the object of indepth investigation. In fact, grapho-phonological information refers to letter and sound relationships which is admitted to be of capital importance at the very first stages of learning to read. At an advanced level, the reader relies on more sophisticated analyses to retrieve infor mation from a text; the grapho-phonological analysis is thus said to be carried out "below the level of conscious awareness". (1) Widdowson's assumption seems to me more valid for the native reader of English than for the EFL reader. In fact, as a reader, the adult native speaker is supposed to hâve internalized the systemic level of his mother tongue. As a resuit, in complying with the finality of the reading skill, namely accuracy, fluency and speed, he becomes unaware of the sounds opération in the process of reading. In other words, ideas, relationships and messages are what he is concerned with while reading.