The processing of complex syntax and its relation to non-native reading comprehension
Item
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Title
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The processing of complex syntax and its relation to non-native reading comprehension
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:3641c2d44c97:10127
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identifier
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10212
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Creator
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Morvay, Gabriella,
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Contributor
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Elaine Klein
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Linguistics | Reading instruction | non-native language | reading comprehension | syntactic processing
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Abstract
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It is commonly recognized that vocabulary knowledge contributes to non-native reading ability. This dissertation, however, examines the important question of whether the knowledge of late-emerging complex syntactic structures also plays a significant role in L2 reading, and if so, which structures contribute to it the most.;Via a variety of measurements, 64 Hungarian speaking 12th graders learning English as a foreign language in Slovakia were tested in a cross-sectional correlational study in order to determine the relationship between the ability to process complex syntax and L2 reading comprehension across two levels of language proficiency. The test instruments involved a standardized reading comprehension test in English, a standardized reading comprehension test in Hungarian, a test of syntactic comprehension in both Hungarian and English, a listening component of a standardized English language proficiency test, and a standardized non-verbal intelligence test in addition to a background questionnaire in Hungarian that reported on participants' language learning history and reading habits. Using power correlations and regression analyses, results showed syntactic comprehension to be a statistically significant estimator for L2 reading comprehension.;Furthermore, it was found that the ability to process complex syntactic structures is an equal contributing factor in both at the lower and at the higher levels of English proficiency. An analysis and comparison of different syntactic structures also revealed that temporal adverbial clauses contributed more to reading comprehension than did other structures, such as passives, and relative clauses. Moreover, native language syntactic abilities also had an effect on participants' L2 reading comprehension.;While vocabulary knowledge is considered to be the most important determinant of effective non-native reading comprehension, this study provides evidence that the ability to process complex syntactic structures in L2 does contribute to one's efficient reading comprehension in that language. The results of this study have both theoretical and pedagogical implications in the field of L2 reading, especially in the context of teaching English as a foreign language.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Linguistics
