Perspectiva nacional

Research question 1 focused on whether the inferences that skilled, adult readers generated in L1 differed between a summary task (textbase comprehension) and a position-paper task (situational comprehension). Firstly, that task affects L1 readers’ inferencing processes cannot be said with certainty given this study’s results, but there are some results suggesting that task does, in fact, affect

inferencing processes in advanced L1 readers. When the percentages of all IEs were compared across L1 tasks there was no statistically significant difference overall (z =1.32, p˃.05), nor of individual inferences at the 95% confidence interval. However, at the 90% confidence interval (p ≤ 0.10) there are three types of inferences that differed significantly, which suggests that with a larger sample size, they may be found to be significant. Participants differed in structure analysis bridging inferences (z = 1.64, p ≤ .1) and in two elaborative inference categories: text-based predictions (z=1.68, p ≤ .10) and

SR revealed several patterns and differences in inferencing processes across tasks in L1 that both support and contradict previous research findings.

In the present study, L1 summary included more reports of structure analysis and text-based predictions, but L1 position-paper included more background knowledge associations. This may be explained by participants focusing on constructing a complete and accurate textbase for the summary task, not unlike Horiba’s (2000) study in which the majority of NSs’ reports were ‘in-text’ when they

were instructed to focus on textual content and structures. In the current study, in the position-paper task condition, participants reported fewer text-based inferences, possibly because they were more comfortable skipping unknown words and uncomprehended clauses knowing they could choose not to include those portions of text in their position essay. Skimming was witnessed multiple times during research sessions when participants had decided that some information was unnecessary; if information is deemed unnecessary, sentence integration is not required (Carver, 1997); thus, participants

strategically skimmed. Further, participants attempted to infer meanings of unknown words and clauses by using textual content which aligns with Hamada’s (2014) findings that in order to use context clues

as opposed to structural features for lexical inferencing, there seems to be a linguistic threshold; the higher the proficiency level, the better context can be applied to make inferences.

The qualitative analysis of the TAs and SR also showed that when a content-based bridging inference failed, participants were more likely to attempt another bridging inference during the summary task than the position-paper task in L1. This seems to be because participants would

strategically apply a second bridging inference if their first attempt failed to resolve the issue in the L1 summary. Participants seemed more focused on the text as a whole while reading for a summary purpose, and also reported more elaborative inferences based on textual content in the L1 summary

task. However, mainly in the L1 position-paper task, if participants skipped an unknown word, they often retained unresolved items in memory, and they verbalized later in the text if something triggered the item and they were able to infer its meaning, exactly as MB researchers have found (Albrecht & Meyers, 1998; Gerrig & McKoon, 1998; Myers & O’Brien, 1998). Under the L1 summary condition,

participants usually reported considering the text more often than their own knowledge; whereas, there were more reports of elaborative inferences based on background knowledge under the L1 position- paper task. As a position-paper task explicitly requires a student to apply their background knowledge to a text, this was not an unexpected result. “There is ample evidence that L1 readers with different reading goals allocate cognitive resources differently during reading” (Horiba & Fukaya, 2015, p. 24). These results support previous findings that readers’ cognitive processes differ based on task (Horiba,

2012; Horiba & Fukaya, 2015; van den Broek et al., 2001)

Given the present findings, it seems that advanced L1 readers strategically inference when reading long expository texts for different tasks. When reading for a summary task, advanced L1 readers allocated more cognitive resources to bridging inferences than when reading for a position- paper task. This is evidenced by higher percentages of bridging inferences, and the qualitative analysis showed that there were many reports of a second bridging inference attempt after an unsuccessful attempt in L1 summary. Further, while reading for a summary task, advanced readers make text-based predictions more often than when reading for a position-paper task; they seem to be more focused on the creation of a complete and accurate textbase when reading in L1 for a summary. This does not mean that they did not attempt to create an accurate textbase while reading for a position-paper task. The reported percentages of text-based associations were the same across the two task conditions in L1. Further, the reported percentages of both types of elaborative evaluations were very similar across L1 tasks. However, advanced L1 readers allocated more cognitive resources to associating textual

content to their background knowledge when reading for a position-paper task as compared to a summary task. In this way, task seems to affect the inferencing processes of advanced L1 readers.