Towards a Model of Comprehension of Foreign Oral Text (Analysis of English Tale Texts)

Abstract

The process of bilingual comprehension of a foreign text can be viewed as a system. Since perception is actualized via various speech units, the system should be based on the minimal segment the listener resorts to in order to remove an error in each case of inadequate comprehension. The data obtained from the research reveal that the segment a bilingual listener chooses to comprehend the misinterpreted text information is a syntagm1. To give the correct description of any system it is required that a constant, the so-called reference point, be chosen. We presume that this function can be performed by a syntagm, because it does not only links the constituents of the speech continuum into a coherent semantic structure, but also manifests itself as a constituent element of such hierarchical units as a phrase, superphrasal unity and a text. The principle of interdependence of various speech units makes the very fact of the actualization, perception and comprehension of an utterance come true. Speech reality, as any other system, manifests itself as an entity, the whole, whose parts interact according to the principle of multi-tier stratification. In conformity with Hedel’s affirmation, the contradiction – non- contradiction of a certain formal system can’t be proved through the same system. Thus, it is not possible to prove that a language is a system through the system itself, which makes it necessary to appeal to mathematics. Applying mathematic approach to a linguistic object we suggest a model of bilingual comprehension of an oral text.