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Progress and Procrastination in Second-Language Reading Research
Elizabeth Bernhardt
Second-language reading research spans the 20th century. It was one of the issues
of concern for the earliest reading researchers, specifically Javal (1878), Cattell (1886),
Erdman and Dodge (1898), Huey (1909), and Judd and Buswell (1922). In their studies
of learners of French in the Chicago public schools (using an eye movement technology),
Judd and Buswell noted that French learners showed “characteristic symptoms of
reading, although their reading is of a labored type…mature foreign language records
show that a foreign language can be read in a manner directly comparable to the reading
of the vernacular…the manner of reading is fundamentally the same” (p. 91). These
words from 1922 can help us measure where we are in the theory building and research
process.
After Judd and Buswell made their forays into second-language reading the field
was fundamentally dropped—there’s a whole history of education, of politics, of warfare,
of structural linguistics, and psychology that we would need to draw on in order to
explain that aftermath. I obviously cannot go into that. But in 1968, we find the field
rementioned by Goodman (1968) who, through miscue analysis, comes to fundamentally
the same conclusion that Judd and Buswell came to a half-century earlier: readers
displayed similar patterns of behavior whether they were reading in first- or secondlanguages—meaning they were making content-based miscues, they were constructing
and restructuring.
So if it’s all fundamentally the same, why are we here? Well, at some level,
second-language reading is fundamentally the same and has to be fundamentally the same
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as first-language reading—second-language readers use text, they learn from it, they
make decisions based on what they learn; further, since we know that second-language
users don’t grow new brains in order to function in second-languages, we know that the
process has to be fundamentally the same—cognitive connections get made within the
cognitive framework that already exists, and so forth.
But anyone who has ever used a second-language, tried to use a second-language,
tried to teach someone a second-language, or tried to teach someone whose first language
is different from the text they’re learning to read, knows that there are clearly shared
properties, but very visible differences that have an impact on understanding, on
perception, on social and psychological access, on processing speed, and on success.
How have these visible differences been investigated?
The Bottom-up/Top-Down Period/Interactive: 1970-1990
With the inception of the field of second-language acquisition (SLA) in the 1970s
(and at the moment I’m going to ignore the whole bilingual education) which was heavily
influenced by psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and sheer politics, the field of secondlanguage reading started down the road of merely imitating (copying?) first-language
studies. These were basically of two kinds—the psycholinguistic studies (involving
generally miscue or cloze—essentially bottom-up/text-based perspectives on reading)
(e.g., Connor, 1981; Devine, 1981, 1984; Hodes, 1981; Romatowski, 1981;Tatlonghari,
1984; Barnett, 1986, Bahtia, 1984; Clarke, 1979, 1980; Cziko, 1978, 1980; Dank &
McEachern, 1979; Elley, 1984; McClean & d’Anglejan, 1986; McLeod & McLaughlin,
1986; Rigg, 1978; Kamil, Smith-Burke, & Rodriguez-Brown, 1986; Mustapha, 1985;
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Groebel, 1979; and others) or more socially-oriented, background knowledge studies,
generally seen as top-down and conceptual (top-down perspectives with the classic
Steffenson study seen as a good model here), but also interesting-at-the-time, butembarrassing-studies-now, such as the ‘clothes washing’ study the text for which was
simply translated into whatever language and second-language readers were asked to read
(Carrell, 1983, 1984a, 1987; Carrell & Wallace, 1983; Cohen, Glasman, RosenbaumCohen, Ferrar, & Fine, 1979;Connor, 1984; Johnson, 1981, 1982; Lee, 1986; Mohammed
& Swales, 1984; Steffenson, 1988; Steffenson, Joag-Dev, & Anderson, 1979; Zuck &
Zuck, 1984; among others).
These types of studies led the field to believe that the
second-language issue was either a “grammar issue” (if one looks at the result of the
cloze studies) or a “prior knowledge issue” as in the case of the latter list. There were, of
course, individuals who investigated word-level and phonological issues (Favreau &
Segalowitz, 1982; Favreau, Komoda, & Segalowitz, 1980; Hatch, Polin, & Part, 1974;
Hayes, 1988; Haynes, 1981; Koda, 1987; Bernhardt, 1983; Muchisky, 1983; Reeds,
Winitz, & Garcia, 1977; among others). Text-structure, affect and metacognition, and
syntax were also on the minds of researchers here and there. I tried to provide a thorough
review of all of these in my 1991 book.
Years went by and in the examination of how prior knowledge was getting used,
it was equally clear that is was overrated and over emphasized.
I worked on this myself
and found that it was highly possibly that a reader had all appropriate and relevant
knowledge and would fail to use it; other times, no apparent relevant or appropriate prior
knowledge and didn’t need it. And if one looked closer at reader performances—well
beneath the superficiality of whether they “got” a text or didn’t—one saw the working
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and interaction of word recognition, syntax, vocabulary, between and among each other
and prior knowledge (Bernhardt, 1991). This model tried to capture precisely these
features:
Insert Figure 1
This model was developed against the backdrop of the literature cited above and
tried to provide a holistic depiction of the interaction of variables in the second-language
reading process. The model is a developmental plot of sets of variable curves set against
error rates. In other words, it appeared at the time that processes such as word
recognition and phonological issues involved in recognizing and understanding words
became fairly rapid and accurate over a relatively short period of time in development.
The other classic bottom-up feature that appeared in the literature, syntax, was not as
cooperative. In fact, syntax appeared to function at an instance of low error rate at the
early levels of proficiency and then appeared to become a complicating factor causing an
increased error rate before leveling off. The function of syntax in second-language
reading (the more you learn the worse you get) is not intuitively obvious yet it is
consistent with other observed “U-shaped” patterns in the second-language acquisition
literature (Ellis, 1986).
And what of the classic top-down or conceptual processes? How did they react
throughout the development of proficiency? Also rather uncooperatively. The
development of understanding within particular texts followed no predictable pattern
other than the fact that once readers made a decision about text content they didn’t go
back to question that decision. In other words, readers didn’t seem to
psycholinguistically guess testing hypotheses. Once they made an initial decision, they
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guessed their way through that decision—not through the text. Ditoo with background
knowledge. These two features—essentially strategic features—did not appear to be part
of the development process of reading; they were either at play or they were not; they
emerge at times; they do not emerge at other times throughout the reading process.
The 1990s: Starting Over Again
Actually, by this time, in the early 90s I think that many of the variables
associated with the process were laid out. And, frankly, those variables are significantly
more complicated than the set involved in the general reading, the general literacy
research literature.
To summarize: the grammatical nature of a language; the
orthographic nature of a language; sociocultural reader variables; sociocultural text
variables; all of these variables were involved in second-language reading. Yet, even
though these variables were laid out and specified, there was still no satisfactory
integrated model of these traits. Indeed, theory and studies still were rather
unidimensional in nature. Bottom-up features such as text structure (Yano, Long, &
Ross,1994;Riley, 1993; Tang, 1992); syntax (Berkemeyer, 1994; Kitajima, 1997;
Takahashi & Roitblatt, 1994), and word knowledge (Kim, 1995; Knight, 1994; Luppescu
& Day, 1993; Leffa, 1992: Laufer & Hadar, 1997; Parry, 1991; Zimmerman, 1997; Chun
& Plass, 1996; Hulstijn, 1993; DeBot, Paribakht, & Wesche, 1997) remained areas of
investigation as did top-down features such as affect (Chi, 1995; Kramscg & Nolden,
1994; Davis, 1992; Davis, Caron-Gorell, Kline, & Hsieh, 1992; Tian, 1991). The interest
in phonological aspects of reading morphed into examinations of reading linked to other
language modalities, most specifically writing (Carrell & Connor, 1991; Hedgecock &
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Atkinson, 1993; Lund, 1991). My point is that investigations continued without real
theory development.
Ironically, one variable was missing from the list above and interestingly the most
obvious. The role of first-language literacy in the second-language process. Of course,
there had been some substantial discussion of the social variables surrounding firstlanguage literacy – most of which was couched as cultural or background knowledgerelated And certainly, in the bottom-up/top-down/interactive period, there had been a
discussion of transfer and interference of one language to another (Clarke, 1979, 1980;
Elley, 1984; Groeble, 1980; Roller, 1988; Sarig, 1987; Wagner, Spratt & Ezzzaki, 1989;
de Suarez, 1985; Irujo, 1986; Dank & McEarchern, 1979; Douglas, 1981; MacLean &
d’Anglejan, 1986; among others). The 1990s witnessed a continued discussion of
transfer and interference processes (Abu-Rabia, 1996, 1998; Block, 1992; Parry, 1996;
Kern, 1994; Barry & Lazarte, 1998; Harrington & Sawyer, 1992; Chikamatsu, 1996;
Everson, 1998; Everson & Ke, 1997; Horiba, 1996; Koda, 1993; Royer & Carlo, 1991;
Tang, 1997; among others). These interference/transfer studies investigated
relationships or correlations and asked questions such as How do readers read in one
language and then in the other?
Yet, the actual act or ability of using a first literacy was never really included in the
array of research variables surrounding second-language text processing until the mid90s. The late 1990’s saw a revisting of the “is it a reading problem or a second-language
problem?” (Alderson, 1984) from a different perspective. Late 1990s’ discussions of
second language reading focused on the the impact of first language literacy knowledge
on the learning and the use of the second. In other words, the question was no longer one
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of difference and influence, but rather of accountability—How much did first language
literacy account for literacy in a second? These studies also probed the language
knowledge question. How much was raw grammatical knowledge in a language able to
account for a given second-language performance?
In order to probe these questions, significantly different kinds of research tasks and
designs were required. Readers whose first-language literacy level was known or
measured had to be observed and measured reading the same text type in two languages.
Further, the level of language knowledge in the second-language also had to be
established. Finally, there was an acknowledgement of continuous variables
(developmentally constituted) rather than of discrete variables, implying a need for a
more sophisticated statistical design than ones used in previous contexts; i.e., a move
from analysis of variance designs into regression, namely, multivariate, designs.
Reformulating the second-language reading problem within new configurations and
analytic designs enabled an analysis of the contribution of first-language literacy and
second-language knowledge to second-language reading performance. Two
Turkish/Dutch studies (Hacquebod, 1989; Bossers, 1991), one French/English (Brisbois,
1995), and two Spanish/English studies (Carrell, 1991 and Bernhardt & Kamil, 1995)
constitute the group that approached second-language reading in this reformulated
manner. Considering that cognate and non-cognate languages; both children and adults
were considered; and different measurement schemas employed, the studies produced
remarkably consistent findings: they all estimated the contribution of first-language
reading to second-language reading to be between 14% and 21% and the contribution of
language knowledge to second-language reading performance to be around 30%.
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Yet, even the acknowledgement of those two critical variables, surely significant
ones-- for it appears that L1 literacy accounts for 20% of the variance in a secondlanguage performance and grammatical knowledge accounts for another 30% (according
to Brisbois 27% vocabulary and 3% syntax)-- was insufficient. Including these two
variables, too, falls short of providing satisfying explanations of the second language
process or of second language reading instruction for in the end they only account for
around half of the variance in any given second-language performance.
I tried to conceptualize the process with this model (Bernhardt, 2000):
Insert Figure 2
This model tries to capture the development of second-language reading over time
and at different proficiency levels and underlines the vastness of the territory yet to be
investigated. The role of affect and interest in second language text processing is yet to
be understood. The role of alternative conceptions of literacy (i.e., non-Western) and the
impact such conceptions have on cognitive processes is critical toward understanding
how persons read and learn to read when one oral language already exists in cognition.
Clearly, a theoretical distribution of factors should not be perceived in a generic fashion.
There are issues of level of first language literacy in relation to actual language
knowledge. At the same time, however, the relationship of factor to factor is probably
also a function of the linguistic overlap between two languages (Spanish-German, for
example, sharing an overlapping orthographic system; Spanish-Thai, having virtually
nothing in common linguistically).
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These recognitions mandate the formulation of a view based on the
interrelationships of languages, on the impact of linguistic and literacy knowledge, and
on principles of learning. I will be the first to admit that this model falls short of a
satisfying model of second-language reading.
Requirements of a Contemporary Theory of Second-Language Reading
Part of the failure to provide a satisfying model thus far is actually the limitation
of conceptualizing a multidimensional process within two dimensions. Let me try,
however, to give you a verbal description within the context of the two dimensions in
figure two. First, a contemporary model of second-language reading must acknowledge
the significant contribution of first-language reading ability to second language
comprehension. We have the 20% estimate that appears to hold over age groups and
languages fairly distinct from each other, but we have no such data from non-syllabic
languages. We must understand whether the literacy generalization holds. Second, a
contemporary model must enable a conceptualization of comprehension as consisting of
different elements and influences (not just raw grammar and vocabulary). Different
languages realize their meanings with different surface structures (such as restrictive
word order in English versus relatively free word order in German) and models have to
acknowledge that in order to move toward higher levels of proficiency, readers must
acquire processing strategies specific to the language at hand. Third, a contemporary
model also must concede that in the reading of cognate languages there is no such thing
as “no knowledge” if the reader is already literate and, at the same time, admit that when
switching to non-cognate languages, the threshold is set at a very different point. In the
model in figure 2, I don’t start at a “0” point, but rather at a 10—there’s already some
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knowledge there on the part of readers from cognate languages. But maybe for the noncognates, there is a true “0”. How is one model to capture “0” and “non-0”? Fourth, a
contemporary model must also encompass a consideration of unexplained variance in
individual performance and after considerable time in instruction (both formal and
informal). And, fifth, a contemporary model must reconcile the performance of children
and adults for surely cognitive capacity has a role to play.
Perhaps a more satisfying conceptualization of the second-language reading
process lies in the concept of compensatory processing. A compensatory model tries to
model how knowledge sources assist or take over for other knowledge sources that are
inadequate or non-existent—i.e., what they use to compensate for deficiencies. Is this
how we might begin to conceptualize how familiarity with orthographic patterns can
facilitate the word recognition process without actual language knowledge; or how the
higher the L1 literacy level, the more it is available to buttress impoverished secondlanguage processes or how the more word knowledge is developed, the more it frees up
resources to, yes, indeed make more syntactical errors and so forth.
In other words, I
urge us to revitalize our conceptualizations of this process as a juggling game in
cognition. Ironically, the primary author of compensatory processing – Stanovich – is
mentioned a number of times in the 1970-1990 generation of reading studies. I could not,
however, find a mention of this model in the studies published since 1991.
But model building and better theorizing are not our only problems. We have two
critical issues that have built a veritable impasse to progress in this area. Here comes the
procrastination part.
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Procrastination
This field has come a really long way really fast and, I believe, is no longer the
mere imitator of first-language models. But there are some big hurdles that stop
researchers in the area. It’s a whole lot easier to conduct literacy research variable by
variable; but we know that that is simply wrong-headed. Let me go back to the two key
variables mentioned above (language knowledge and literacy knowledge and talk through
why we’re procrastinating.
First, the issue of language is a sensitive one. It’s an issue in first-language and
most certainly in second. There are not many reading researchers who know a language
other than English. So what do they do? They stay in English. Models of reading have
always been based on English, but this means they are inherently biased toward a
particular surface structure and a particular view of literacy. How can one take an
alternative view when one has no alternative view? Let me be quick to say that those
who investigate second-languages are notoriously monolingual. We can look to the data
base to document this narrowness. There are many studies that have subject groups from
across multiple language backgrounds. Of the 121 research studies that I reviewed in my
1991 book, 56 provide no indication of the number and variety of subjects from different
language backgrounds. “105 ESL learners at three proficiency levels” is usually the
typical information given. Hence, in a huge portion of the second-language reading database, the variables introduced by these multiple languages have never been
acknowledged. So we simply have a real problem—a dearth of researchers who can do
high-quality research in the area. (I know someone will argue for a team approach. I’m a
real conservative here. I think the researcher needs to know the language he/she is
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making claims about.) There’s an added dimension to the language issue when one
considers assessment. We know that the language of assessment with L2 populations is
critical. If readers are assessed in comprehension tasks in their stronger language (always
L1 until the highest proficiency/fluency levels), their comprehension seems to be much
more significant than when it is measured with along with their impoverished secondlanguage skills. When called on this point, researchers lament that since they don’t know
the language of the subjects with whom they are working, they are forced to assess them
in the researchers’ language. Researcher deficiencies shouldn’t be interfering with the
ability to provide solid and trustworthy data.
Second, the measurement of literacy level. On the one hand, this, too, is an oldfashioned concept and a sensitive one. Measurement of literacy level somehow smacks
of large-scale testing and that whole political agenda. But, politics aside, developing and
validating a measure of literacy in an array of languages other than English is a
formidable task—and the thought of doing it even before beginning a study of secondlanguage issues is even more formidable. But realize the implications here. If L1
literacy is truly the significant variable that it appears to be, in most of our studies we
may simply have re-measured first-language literacy level rather than ever touched any
second-language variable. To be more concrete—it is a rare L2 study that appears to
have an effect size large enough to overcome a 20% (or even a 10%) variance attributable
to first-language literacy.
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Conclusion
I believe that we cannot make any genuine progress in the field of secondlanguage reading until we conduct theoretically rich research. That research must be
respectful of the fundamental nature of an array of languages. It must also acknowledge
the presageful nature of the reader’s L1 literacy level and account for it.
Why has this been so hard to achieve? Let me circle back to the beginning of
these remarks. This field has been marked (plagued?) historically by the
overgeneralization that L1 and L2 are simple the “same.” Now Judd and Buswell did
not mean “the same” as in the same route at all; they meant that the behaviors of fluency
on their surface look fundamentally “the same.” In like manner, what Goodman was
referring to was something similar—that miscues are observed in both first- and secondlanguage processing and that they can relate to meaning construction. Again, a surface
manifestation without comment about route. Further, the Anglophilial nature of secondlanguage research underlines the “sameness.” That is, L1 reading research is almost
exclusively “English;” so is L2; therefore, the processes must be “the same.” I need
only refer you to a recent piece published in Reading Research Quarterly for
documentation of the “it’s all the same” perspective.
These are dangerous perspectives to continue to foster. From an academic sense,
they make for superficial research…but, in some fundamental sense that’s only tragic in
terms of tenure and promotion papers. From a humanitarian sense, these perspectives are
much more problematic. Millions of individuals across the globe from hundreds of
native languages are provided their only literacy through English and their only access to
scientific information through English. When we have only a superficial understanding
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of the relationship between their first language and culture and the impact of that on
literacy in a second, we play with their education and their ultimate ability to critically
interpret material in English. These are pretty high stakes.