Evidence of a Formal Schema in Second Language Comprehension

Research on discourse comprehension has shown that comprehension is determined not only by the local effects (sentences or paragraphs), but also by the overall organization of a text. Each type of text—e.g., stories, fables, expository and scientific texts—has its own conventional structure; knowledge of these conventions aids listeners or readers in comprehending the text as well as in recalling it later (Kintsch and van Dijk 1975; Meyer 1975; Thorndyke 1977). Following Bartlett (1932), this knowledge has been called a schema , or more specifically, following Carrell (1983a), a formal schema. Recent empirical research has shown the powerful effects of formal schemata in first language comprehension for both adults and children (Mandler and Johnson 1977; Johnson and Mandler 1980). Findings for first language acquirers, children, show that at least by first grade children have acquired story schemata and use them to organize comprehension and recall of stories (Mandler 1978a). Yet, no comparable research has been done to empirically investigate the role of story schemata in second language comprehension. This paper reports an empirical study of the effects of story structure on second language comprehension, specifically reading comprehension in English as a second language. Results indicate that the quantity and temporal sequence of story recall are affected by differences in story structure. The findings are discussed in terms of schema‐theoretic approaches to reading and the effects of formal, rhetorical schemata on ESL reading comprehension. The paper concludes with a call for further ESL research in this area.