Compilatio Assisiensis.

Up to this point, this discussion of reading comprehension has been rather neutral regarding whether reading is done in a first or second language. Unlike with L1 reading

comprehension development, most L2 readers become L2 comprehenders well after L1 reading comprehension skills are developed (Jiang, 2011; Koda, 1988). Further, reading in a second language involves higher cognitive load than reading in an L1, as language processes which are assumed to be fully automatized in L1 reading may still be developing in L2 reading (Yoshida, 2012). Alderson and Urquhart (1984) summarize the conflicting hypotheses about what

influences reading in an additional language as follows:

1. Readers who are competent readers in a first language will be competent readers in an additional language.

2. Successful reading in an additional language is a product of knowledge or proficiency of the additional language.

3. Poor reading in an additional language is due to lack of application of relevant L1 literacy skills. This supposes that there is a threshold of language ability before

literacy skills can be applied to reading. Below the threshold, the cognitive demand of using a second language is too high for L1 literacy skills to be utilized.

4. Poor reading in an additional language is due to a mismatch of literacy skills in the first and additional language, i.e. multilingual readers do apply known literacy skills, but they may not aid reading an additional language.

Field (2018) generalizes this further, identifying the two modern lines of argument being a universalist argument which posits all readers at some point achieve a set of literacy skills that contribute to comprehension on the one hand, and an expertise argument which posits that there

is a language proficiency threshold which must be reached before literacy skills can be engaged on the other.

The earliest position on multilingual reading was that deficiency in reading in an additional language was a result of poor literacy in the L1. This notion rose from the idea that reading in any language involves the same set of strategies (Goodman, 1973, in Alderson & Urquhart, 1984) and argued that multilingual reading instruction involved rectification of poor L1 reading habits (Coady, 1978, in Alderson & Urquhart, 1984). This view was supported by correlations found between success on L1 and L2 basic aptitude measures and cloze tests. However, little evidence has been produced beyond bidirectional relationships, and there has been little empirical support for the hypothesis that reading ability in an additional language is reading ability in the first language.

Evidence seemed to be found more readily for the second hypothesis, that reading in a second language was dependent on second language proficiency. The aspect of proficiency could be related to vocabulary, i.e. knowing the words needed to represent concepts in a text (Ulijn & Kempen, 1976) , or be related to more general L2 proficiency (Cziko, 1978). These studies showed that the correlation between L2 proficiency and L2 reading was higher than that between L1 and L2 reading, yet these studies also often found moderate correlations between literacy in both languages (Alderson & Urquhart, 1984).

More likely, there is a complex interaction of language proficiency and L1 literacy skills in reading in an additional language. This is the stance put forth by the threshold hypothesis, which implies that once readers reach a certain threshold of L2 proficiency, L1 reading skills can be applied, and that both are necessary for reading comprehension in an additional language (Cummins, 1979). In recent years, researchers have agreed that there is likely a mix of influences

on L2 reading from the L1 and L2, investigating how much positive transfer of literacy skills exist in developing L2 reading comprehension, and what the unique contribution of L1 reading skills and L2 language proficiency are for L2 reading. Mokhtari and Reichard (2004) found that the consciously activated reading strategies of multilingual English readers did not differ from monolingual English readers in comprehension of texts, although the contribution of strategies to success may differ, supporting the view that literacy skills are shared between good

comprehenders in an L1 or an L2, and L2 readers can transfer their literacy skills from their L1. At the same time, it is well established that there are measurable linguistic thresholds to

comprehension, such as the need to comprehend 95% of the vocabulary of a text to achieve minimum comprehension (Laufer & Nation, 1999; Verhoeven et al., 2011) and the role morphological awareness plays in L2 text comprehension (Nagy et al., 2006).

Indeed, most studies examining this issue have found that each domain contributes meaningfully, but not overwhelmingly, to L2 reading ability (Carrell, 1991; Carson, Carrell, Silberstein, Kroll, & Kuehn, 1990; Jiang, 2011; Pae, 2017). In more cognitively challenging reading tasks, which may be less familiar to readers in L1 or L2, the difference between contributions of L2 proficiency and L1 reading skills widened, and L2 proficiency takes the lion’s share of predictive power for L2 reading. L2 proficiency also influences the way in which readers arrive at comprehension, as text coherence is based on different cues for speakers across proficiency levels, with lower proficiency readers attributing coherence to semantic similarity throughout at text and higher proficiency readers attributing coherence to causal linkage

throughout at text (Nahatame, 2014). Pae (2017), in modeling the componentiality of L2 reading as a combination of L2 proficiency and L1 reading skills, found that both aspects contributed to L2 reading, with L2 proficiency being the stronger predictor of L2 reading ability, but the

strength of contribution differed depending on the cognitive demands of the task. In more

cognitively challenging reading tasks, the difference between contributions of L2 proficiency and L1 reading skills widened. Pae (2017) offers no explanation for why the gap in contribution should widen, but it may be that more cognitively complex tasks begin to involve more register specific language that has no analog in the L1, and thus L2 proficiency takes the lion’s share of predictive power for L2 reading.

This calls back to the fourth hypothesis mentioned by Alderson and Urquhart (1984), that successful reading in a second language depends on learning skills and strategies specific to the language. This hypothesis rests on the idea that every language’s text conventions require certain literacy skills that may not be present in all languages and reading instruction and assessment should focus on second language literacy skills as distinct from either proficiency or

monolingual literacy. This hypothesis has its roots in outdated contrastive analysis (Cowan, 1976), focusing on the misapplication of L1-specific reading strategies.

A more modern synthesis of this hypothesis highlights the importance of literacy

strategies but diminishes the labeling of them as L1 strategies. This can account for the fact that in a globalized world, academic systems often encourage use of academic literacy skills in an additional language beyond that acquired in first languages. For at least English, large

populations of learners come from language backgrounds lacking in strong emphasis on print literacy (Bigelow & Tarone, 2004), and many learners are early bilinguals which only develop literacy in one language or another (Ramírez, 2000). The skills needed for academic reading with these reader populations may be distinct from both oral L2 proficiency and presumed L1 literacy skills.

Reading comprehension assessments for multilingual readers are designed as proof that a reader holds the necessary skills for comprehension, be they related to language proficiency or literacy skills (Green, 2013). An assessment use argument for a test of advanced level reading for academic purposes must be able to attribute real-world ability to reading comprehension scores. as seen in standardized proficiency tests used for university entrance, scores on reading

comprehension tests or subtests can be considered valid only if they reflect test takers’ various capabilities to comprehend texts in realistic situations reflective of college-level academic reading in an additional language. This implies reading test design for multilingual readers cannot be identical to L1 reading tests, nor can it focus overly on language features simply presented as reading exercises. The assessments must utilize texts which are general enough so as to tap into various knowledge domains without over-emphasizing the role of any specific content. Reading assessments must evaluate skills from the bottom up and the top down to make the claim that a reader is ready for demands of academic reading, which is dynamic and involves multiple reading purposes.