Reading Strategies in L1 and L2

Abstract

Abstract This study compared LI (Japanese) and L2 (English) reading strategies reported by four groups of readers with different reading ability backgrounds. Information on the strategies was extracted by a think aloud method. The following points emerged. (1) Generally speaking, readers tend to transfer their LI reading strategies to their L2 reading. (2) Language independent strategies are more likely to be transferred from LI to L2 than language dependent strategies. (3) High LI reading ability compensates for weak L2 reading ability, but there is a limit to this compensation. These results suggested a stronger relationship between LI and L2 reading processes than is predicted by the linguistic threshold hypothesis. The possibility that we can explain the results by combining the linguistic threshold hypothesis and the linguistic interdependence hypothesis, which have often been treated as conflicting, was discussed.