As the English language continues to hold a prominent international position both politically and academically, the need for second/foreign language (L2) learners especially those involved in the scientific and technological disciplines to read from their books in English remains a vital social and educational issue. Even though language learners seem to understand this urgency, they often show resistance towards the L2 literacy package and reading in the language which not only introduces new linguistic knowledge, but more importantly suggests change in a learner's identity. The latter seems to occur more often in situations where the learners' literacy practices do not match those in the second language. This mismatch seems to be more salient between languages in which the construction of orthographic systems are different from the Roman script. Researchers have suggested that in cultures where literacy is negotiated through scripts differing from English; as in Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic/Farsi, the levels of processing language is different in comparison to languages which use the Roman script in their literacy practices. Furthermore, research has indicated a relationship between first language reading and what takes place in the second/foreign language. For example, investigations of several variables such as background knowledge, text format, and rhetorical structure of the first language, seem to show that they either transfer to or influence second/foreign language reading. However, what has received little attention in ESL/EFL research is the influence of the first language writing system when it differs from the Roman script. The present research that was conducted in Iran, is an inquiry into reading processes of sixty-three Iranian undergraduate students. An attempt was made to explore multiple variables related to L2 reading by applying both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. For the quantitative data, multivariate statistical procedures were conducted to see which variables, namely L1 reading proficiency (first language cloze task), L2 language proficiency (second language cloze task), L1 and L2 visual search strategy (L1 and L2 visual search task) contributed most to comprehension of English text related to both a general topic and a chemistry topic. In the qualitative analysis, introspective techniques were adopted to investigate hidden issues (through think-aloud-protocols) related to social and community literacy practices not tapped in the product-oriented quantitative investigation. Results of this study reveal the influence of both sociopolitical and linguistic factors in reading English as a second/foreign language.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/6691 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Ghahremani-Ghajar, Sue-san. |
| Contributors | Masny, Diana, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 192 p. |
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