Linguistic Features for Critical Reading (CR)

The purpose of this study was to explore the linguistic features or factors related to understanding text for Critical Reading (CR). Supposing meaning flows from an understanding of the cultural, social, and political contexts in which the reading takes place (Hood et al., 1996; Halliday, 1978, 1993; Hammond, 1999; Kress 1985, 1989; Mills, 1995),1 critical theorists, including Freire (1983), Gee (1990), and Street (1993), viewed reading as a social and cultural process that takes into account the relationship and interaction between authors and readers. In accordance with the research on non-native readers of Kress (1985), Wallace (1992, 2001) and Goatly (2000), readers should be aware of linguistic features in order to be active readers and to enter the stage of active learning. They proposed active learning as a cognitively stimulating state in which the readers and text interact as the reader uses various linguistic features from their prior background knowledge and information from the text to derive meaning2 (Grabe, 1991, 1995; Hood, Solomon, & Burns, 1996; Ur 1996; Carrell and Eisterhold 1983; Wodak, 1996), not just to understand the literal message of the text which may finally overpower the reader, but to explore the exquisitely designed linguistic features embedded in the text. This study will focus on how the various aspects of reading (e.g. word recognition, structure analysis, and background knowledge) contribute to effective reading. CR theorists propose the following linguistic features as keys to realization of CR: (1) factors to be detected in the organization of text, (2) factors related to in styles of structure, choices of certain vocabulary & grammar, transitivity of meanings, and politeness & verbal processes, (3) factors stemming from understanding social relationships, assertiveness & usage of personal pronouns, metaphor & irony, and emotional meaning in lexis and contested terms, and (4) finally factors of proposition and presupposition, inferences from the existing knowledge, socio-cultural context of the text, and intertextuality. This paper focuses, among others, on exploring some of the linguistic features especially related to understanding interpersonal meaning in the text and interpreting the meaning out of the text.