Strategy 3: Use of context and paratextual features (Superstructural strategy)

Superstructural strategies

Readers employ superstructural strategies to recognize text types and its internal organization as well as the relations among text types and their combinations.

 Cubo de Severino et al. (2008) explain that each text contains two elements:
content and form. The former includes the information the text conveys whereas the latter refers to the way that information is organized in its structure. The form is varied and depends on different factors which specify the text types. As it has already been mentioned, they can be categorized into argumentative, narrative, expository and instructive texts, with examples such as stories, catalogues, prospects, poems, drama, comics, and recipes among others (p. 65).

 The superstructural schemes can be characterized as conventional or arbitrary; i.e. the forms are agreed by users of the language, they are not universal and they vary according to the different cultures so they need to be learnt. They are also abstract since they are mental schemes which are filled in with content and independent from the language since they can contain diverse codes. (Cubo de Severino et al., 2008, p.66)

These strategies allow the reader to recognize the rhetoric schemes of texts, and its content distribution before, during and after reading. Before reading, users observe the form and paratextual features in order to recognize the categories and assign a text type. Besides, readers can make inferences about the communicative situation and predict the possible content. During and after reading users can confirm or reject the hypotheses made and they may recognize the author´s purpose to write the text. (Cubo de Severino et al., 2008)

Strategies: a taxonomy

Cubo de Severino et al. (2008) suggest a classification of strategies based on Van Dijk and Kintsch’s model (1983) in order to build the text base: superstructural strategies, which are used to deal with the text as a whole; macrostructural strategies, which are used to distinguish main idea and global coherence; microsturctural strategies, which deal with local coherence; propositional strategies; which assign functions and relations among propositions in a sentence; and lexical strategies; which deal with word meanings (pp. 26-29).

Strategy 2: Making inferencs

Making Inferences

According to Cubo de Severino et al. (2008) authors leave in their texts clues or instructions which are supposed to be unraveled in order to comprehend the message that is given. The readers’ only tool is their knowledge of the world so they activate their long term memory in order to interpret those clues making use of mental operations such as hypothesis, analogy, comparison, analysis, synthesis, among others, with the aim of relating the unknown with their own experience. These mental activities are referred to as inferential strategies (p. 43). Van Dijk and Kitsch (1983) claim that inferences are text blanks that should be filled by readers. Texts are not completely explicit, they have information blanks and readers are required to assign meaningful interpretations to them by making inferences in order to comprehend the text (as cited in Cubo de Severino et al, 2008).

 

Cubo de Severino et al. define inferences as the central movement of thought from the known information to the unknown, relating them through hypothesis in order to confirm them and, finally, turn the unknown into known information (2008:42). The authors (2008) claim that inferences allow readers to draw conclusions. This last operation is twofold: the formation of hypotheses or predictions and the confirmation of the hypotheses, which is an inferential process. To make inferences, readers pay attention to paratextual clues as well as textual ones in order to build the scheme of the text base in the long term memory by storing a graphic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic representation of the text.

 

Cubo de Severino et al. (2008) suggest the inclusion of inferential questions as well as literal questions in the reading tasks in order to help readers in their comprehension of the text. Peronard (as cited in Cubo de Severino et al., 2008) claims that literal questions require the memorization of the text whereas the inferential questions are targeted at the comprehension process (p. 49). Nicholas and Trabasso (1979, as cited in Cubo de Severino et al., 2008) describe the type of inferences readers make when reading: 

• Lexical inferences: inferences made in response to the questions what? Who?
• Spatio-temporal inferences: inferences made in response to the questions where? When?
• Extrapolative inferences: inferences made in response to the questions how? Why?
• Evaluative inferences: inferences based on personal, moral social judgment about the text.

Nuttall (2005) supports the importance of inferencing by claiming that readers “who can infer meaning from context have a powerful aid to comprehension and will ultimately read more quickly” (p. 72). She adds that the readers’ knowledge of the world helps to narrow down the possibilities and bridge the gaps in the text (pp. 73).

Strategy 1: Predicting

Prediction as the first strategy

Nuttall (2005) emphasizes the importance of prediction since it activates the schemata, bringing in knowledge and experiences readers have already stored in their minds related to the text. It helps the reader make sense of the text as a whole and of its components individually (p. 12).

Alderson and Urquhart (1984) agree that prediction is the basic reading strategy which includes three processes: sampling information, confirming hypothesis and correcting them if the prediction is miscued.

Smith (1988) gives three reasons why readers need to predict. The first is related to the fact that readers need to anticipate what is going to appear next in the text. A reader who is concerned with the word directly in front of the eye may have difficulties predicting and comprehending the whole meaning of the text. The second reason is related to the ambiguity that exists in the world. There are too many ways of interpreting things so readers need to select the most possible alternatives in advance. And the third is related to the quicker recognition in the text. If alternatives are discarded in advance, the number of possible choices is reduced and it aids the making of decisions to comprehend the text better. As Smith summarizes, “prediction brings potential meaning to texts, reducing ambiguity and eliminating in advance irrelevant alternatives” (1988:18).

Prediction is the backbone of reading, it aids reading to select in advance a number of possibilities in relation to the text that is to be read: its structure, genre, type, places, situations, schemes and even plot. Prediction aims at asking prior questions which comprehension is supposed to answer.

This strategy contains different elements:

 

• information stored in the reader´s minds regarding knowledge of the world,
• knowledge of texts,
• possible content related to the text
• possible vocabulary which may appear in the given text.