Analysis of the Effect of Content Familiarity and Gender on English as a Foreign Language Reading Comprehension by Spanish University Students

• Autores: Ana Cristina Lahuerta Martínez
• Localización: Porta Linguarum: revista internacional de didáctica de las lenguas extranjeras, ISSN 1697-7467, Nº. 21, 2014, págs. 69-84
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.30827/digibug.30483
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen
  • español

    El objetivo de este artículo es explorar los efectos relativos de género y familiaridad con el contenido del texto sobre la comprensión escrita en inglés como lengua extranjera. Sesenta y ocho estudiantes de la Facultad de Formación del Profesorado y Educación de la Universidad de Oviedo de nivel elemental e intermedio participaron en el estudio.

    Los resultados muestran que tanto el género como la familiaridad con el contenido tienen una influencia significativa en la comprensión del texto de los sujetos. El estudio parece rechazar la hipótesis del umbral lingüístico ya que tanto los lectores de nivel elemental como los de nivel intermedio leen mejor el texto que les resulta familiar independientemente de su conocimiento de la lengua y también apoya una consideración interactiva de la comprensión escrita en una lengua no nativa.

  • English

    The aim of this paper is to explore the relative effects of gender and content familiarity on English as a Foreign Language reading comprehension. Sixty-eight elementary and intermediate level undergraduate English language students at the Faculty of Teacher Training of the University of Oviedo participated in the study. The results of the study show that gender and content familiarity significantly affected the students� overall comprehension of the texts. The study appears to reject the so-called linguistic threshold hypothesis as both the elementary level and intermediate level readers of the study could read with better understanding when the text was familiar, irrespective of their language knowledge and also seems to support the interactive view of L2 reading comprehension.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Al-Shumaimeri, Y. (2005). “Gender Differences in Reading Comprehension Performance in Relation to Content Familiarity of Gender-Neutral Texts”....
  • Al-Shumaimeri, Y. (2006). “The effects of content familiarity and language ability on reading comprehension performance of low-and high-ability...
  • Anderson, N. J. (1991). “Individual differences in strategy use in second language reading and testing”, in The Modern Language Journal, 75,...
  • Ay, S. and Şen Bartan, O. (2012). “The Effect of Topic Interest and Gender on Reading Test Types in a Second Language”, in The Reading Matrix,...
  • Bartlett, F. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • Bernhardt, E.B. (1991a). Reading development in a second language: Theoretical, empirical, and classroom perspectives. NJ: Ablex, Norwood.
  • Bernhardt, E.B. (1991b). “A Psycholinguistic Perspective on Second Language Literacy”, in AILA Review, 8: 31-44.
  • Bernhardt, E. B. (2003). “Challenges to reading research from a multilingual world”, in Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 1: 112-117.
  • Bernhardt, E. B. (2005). “Progress and procrastination in second language reading”, in Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25: 133–155.
  • Brantmeier, C. (2002). “The effects of passage content on second language reading comprehension by gender across instruction levels”, in H....
  • Brantmeier, C. (2003a). “Does gender make a difference? Passage content and comprehension in second language reading”, in Reading in a Foreign...
  • Brantmeier, C. (2003c). “Language skills or passage content? A comparison of native and non-native male and female readers of Spanish”, in...
  • Brantmeier, C. (2004a). “Gender, violent-oriented passage content and second language reading comprehension”, in The Reading Matrix. 4, 2:...
  • Brantmeier, C. (2004b). “Building a comprehensive theory of adult foreign language reading: A variety of variables and research methods”,...
  • Brantmeier, C. (2006). “Readers’ gender and test method effect in second language reading”, in Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford...
  • Bügel, K. and Buunk, B. (1996). “Sex differences in foreign language text comprehension: The role of interests and prior knowledge”, in Modern...
  • Carrell, P.L. (1991). “Second language reading: Reading ability or language proficiency?” in Applied Linguistics, 12,2: 159-179.
  • Chen, Q. (1995). Comprehension of science texts: Effects of domain-specific knowledge and language proficiency. Unpublished doctoral dissertation....
  • Clapham, C. (1996). The development of IELTS: A study of the effect of background knowledge on reading comprehension. Cambridge University...
  • Doolittle, A. and Welch, C. (1989). Gender differences in performance on a college level achievement test. Iowa City, IA.: American College...
  • Dornyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learning: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Lawrence Erlbaum, London.
  • Erten, I.H. and Razi, S. (2009). “The effects of cultural familiarity on reading comprehension” in Reading in a Foreign Language, 21, 1: 60-77.
  • Keshavarz, M. and Ashtarian, S. (2008). “The relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ gender and reading comprehension of three different...
  • Kim, S.A. (1995). “Types and Sources of Problems in L2 Reading”, in Foreign Language Annals, 28, 1: 49-70. ACTFL (American Council on the...
  • Koda, K., (2005). Insights into second language reading: A cross-linguistic approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • Lin, L.F., (2010). “Senior High School Students’ Reading Comprehension of Graded Readers”, in Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 1,...
  • Martino, N. L. and Hoffman, P.R. (2002). “An investigation of reading and language abilities of college freshmen”, in Journal of Research...
  • O’Reilly, T. and McNamara, D. (2007). “The impact of science knowledge, reading skill, and reading strategy knowledge on more traditional...
  • Payne, T. and Lynn, R. (2011). “Sex differences in second language comprehension”, in Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 434-436.
  • Shokouhi, H. and Parvaresh, N. (2010). “Post-adjunct reading comprehension questions and meaning construction: a case of gender study”, in...
  • Sunderland, J. (2000). “Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education”, in Language Teaching, 33: 203-223.
  • Wolf, D. (1991). The Effects of Task, Language of Assessment, and Target Language Experience on Foreign Language Learners Performance on Reading...
  • Wolf, D., (1993). “A comparison of assessment tasks used to measure FL reading comprehension”, in Modern Language Journal, 77: 473-89.
  • Yazdanpanah, K. (2007). “The effect of background knowledge and reading comprehension test items on male and female performance”, in The Reading...