Abstract

Considering the fact that being able to read efficiently would be a key tool for academic success, there has been a plethora of research conducted on this skill with a serious focus on the degree to which reading comprehension is the function of lexical and grammatical knowledge of the language. However, the present study was an endeavour to examine whether L2 (English) reading comprehension is ‘language-specific’ or related to ‘general reading proficiency’. Moreover, it has investigated reading comprehension strategies to see whether both poor and proficient Iranian readers use similar strategies for reading comprehension tasks in either languages or whether they employ different strategies depending on the language. The sample of 87 upper-intermediate Iranian EFL learners was recruited for the study that took seven months to complete. Statistical analyses revealed that L2 reading comprehension is not language-specific but primarily related to ‘general reading proficiency’. It was also found that proficient readers employed more or less identical strategies for reading comprehension tasks of different languages, while this was not the case for poor readers.

摘要

考虑到有效阅读将是取得学术成功的关键工具这一事实，对此技术进行了大量研究，重点是阅读理解在一定程度上是该语言的词汇和语法知识的功能。语言。但是，本研究旨在检验L2（英语）阅读理解是“特定语言”还是与“一般阅读能力”相关。此外，它还研究了阅读理解策略，以了解贫穷和精通的伊朗读者是否都使用相似的策略来阅读两种语言的理解任务，或者他们是否根据语言使用不同的策略。招募了87名伊朗中级EFL学习者的样本进行了为期7个月的研究。统计分析表明，二语阅读理解不是特定语言的，而主要与“一般阅读能力”有关。还发现，熟练的读者或多或少地采用相同的策略来阅读不同语言的理解任务，而贫穷的读者则并非如此。