Differing Reading-Writing Relationships in L1 and L2 Literacy Development?

Abstract

0 The complex nature of L2 literacy has recently become an area of special concern to applied linguists and second language acquisition researchers. Carson, Carrell, Silberstein, Kroll, and Kuehn (1990), for example, studying reading and writing relationships for ESL students from two different L1 backgrounds, found that although measures of reading and writing proficiency were significantly related for their Japanese subjects in Japanese, a similar relationship held among Chinese subjects only in English. Likewise, Eisterhold (1990), in a theoretical comparison of L1 and L2 literacy development, noted two conceptual complexities in the case of the latter: Many L2 acquirers come to the task of second language literacy acquisition with well-developed L1 literacy skills; and L2 acquirers typically do not have full oral competence available in the second language to support acquisition of its literacy. Even without considering the question of spoken language influence, however, the process of L2 literacy development is a highly involved one. Studies of reading-writing relationships such as those mentioned above suggest that L2 literacy acquisition may result in varying outcomes depending on the nature of Li literacy and/or the extent to which it has been mastered (see, e.g., Alderson, 1984; Carrell, 1991; Carson, 1991). In this short report, we describe parallel studies of LI and L2 schoolbased literacy development in order to point out differences between study results which appear to highlight the complex nature of L2 literacy acquisition.