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Language schemata includes the decoding features of each word and how they combine together in a sentence. This is the basic knowledge of language. It is well-known that basic language knowledge like words and phrases, grammar and sentence structure play a very significant role in the comprehending of a text, especially for the beginning learners. If readers who don’t have enough basic knowledge such as vocabulary and grammar, it is meaningless and useless for them to learn reading methods. The readers who has poor language schemata will encounters a big obstacle when they carry on fast reading and want to comprehend the text. Thereby, the more proper language schemata the readers store in their mind, the faster and better they obtain information, and the more accurate they understand the text.
Formal schema refer to background information with various texts, it includes different genres, different structures, different kinds of stories, as well as different types of articles, and so on. Similarly, when give a lesson with traditional approach, we can devise an introduction and overview. Some scholars described formal schemata as encoded, abstract, internalized, coherent patterns of discoursed, and textual organization that guide us to understand a meaningful piece of language. Reading materials can be classified into four categories: exposition, description, argumentation and narration. These are all available in daily reading like newspaper articles, reports, autobiographies, correspondence, and so on.
Content schemata refer to the cultural background knowledge about the content area of a text, or the topic and the main ideas of a text. It is made up of textual topic familiarity, cultural background knowledge, and previous information about a field. Content schemata deal with the knowledge related to the content of the text, which is important for readers to understand the texts.
2.3 Characteristics of Schema Theory
Each theory has its own characteristics, so does schema theory. Rumelhart believes that the schema at least has the following basic characteristics: schema has variability which can be nested, in other words, one schema can be included in another schema; schema represents not only the definition but also the abstract knowledge; schema is a knowledge unit; schema activity is an active process (30). It’s certain that this kind of introduction is too simple. So we must make a further explanation in the following parts.
A lot of knowledge is stored in people’s mind. It can help people to understand the text easily. Knowledge reflects the wit of human. If the artificial intelligence researchers want to take human wisdom as the model, they need to find out a unit, which is used to represent a big amount of knowledge in the human memory. They can analyze human knowledge to a more systematic degree under the guide of unit. Schema represents the abstract knowledge. For example, the teacher writes a big “A” on the blackboard, and tells students it is the letter “A”. This situation makes a deep impression on the students and they will remember it for a long time. After a while, when the teacher writes a little “A” on the students exercise books by pencil, the students will still recognize it. It shows that the students have already perceived the “A” on the blackboard and know about the general features of it. At the same time, they have formed the schema. They have learned that the “A” on the blackboard has the same general features with the one on the exercise books but different in the specific characteristics at the same time. It is because we have all kinds of schema in our memories that we know what kind of things to do and how to do it. That’s why people’s words and behaviors will be proper and easy to understand. For example, we will not ask the attendant to “give me a pair of shoes” when we enter a restaurant, because the restaurant schema tells us that it doesn’t sell shoes.