The Process of Retrieval in the Comprehension of Arabic Discourse

Abstract

The current study aims at finding out how retrieval of discourse takes place during the process of comprehension. It is hypothesized that the process of retrieval is relative among language users in its capacity and ways. Most important , it is also hypothesized that this process is patterned in nature and such pattering is also relative from one language user into another. In other words, language users look for different patterns when comprehending discourse. The above aim and hypotheses have been verified through an experiment conducted on 100 secondary school students. The subjects are asked to read an Arabic story and a mathematic text. Then , those participants are asked to answer a questioner conducted for the study to see how they could retrieve the materials given. McDermott and Roediger model (2021) of analysis has been proposed as the model of comprehension adopted in this study. It is concluded that subjects look for specific patterns in the discourse in order to memorize and retrieve the data chosen. These patterns could be : rhematic, schematic, relevance, enjoyment, distinctiveness, familiarity, and linguistic. It is, also, found out that there are different factors which affect the process of retrieval including : interest, background knowledge, subjects capacity, emotions and frequency of repetition.