10.20381/ruor-7867
Zerhouni, Badia.
Reading in L1, L2, and FL: A variable-treatment study.
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
1996
Language, Linguistics.
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
2009-03-25
2009-03-25
1996
1996
Thesis
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-09, Section: A, page: 3502.
9780612210226
http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9582
The present study investigated the effects of four independent variables on free immediate recall of four texts: (1) background knowledge, (2) the global structure of the texts, (3) the propositional structure of the texts, and (4) subjects' second/foreign language proficiency level. Two texts, Text F and Text M discussed topics related to humanities; the other two, Text S and Text E, discussed topics related to science. The four texts had each a different global structure, and were divided into four propositional levels. Three linguistic groups were involved in the study: (1) L1 group (Canadian anglophones), (2) L2 group (Canadian francophones), and (3) FL (Iranian, Serbian, and Moroccan learners of English as a second/foreign language). The three groups consisted of both humanities and science subjects. They were all university students either at the graduate or undergraduate level. The major findings of the present study are as follows: (1) Background knowledge was, to a considerable extent, a determining factor in comprehension and recall of information by subjects, but interest in and motivation for the topic/content of reading were also important factors. (2) Global structure of the texts did not seem to have any determining effects on comprehension and recall of information. Subjects who identified the correct global structure of the texts did not yield different recalls from those who did not identify the correct structure, or those who did not provide a structure at all. Also, there did not seem to be any important interactions between the type of global structure and the topic of the text. (3) Propositional structure produced a variety of significant results. Results of all the groups combined for each of the texts used in the study indicated respect of the hierarchy principle. However, analysis of results at the paragraph level of each text indicated that propositional recall was not always consistent with the hierarchy principle. This analysis also indicated some effects of the serial position principle. (4) Language proficiency also yielded somewhat mixed results. On the one hand, it was shown to be a determining factor in comprehension and recall of information in that higher proficiency levels performed better than lower ones, and L1 and L2 were both superior to FL. On the other hand, it was shown that there were cases of nonsignificant differences between higher and lower proficiency levels, and between L1, L2, and FL. There were also occurrences of superior performances among L2 and FL subjects over L1 subjects.