Reading Comprehension in a Second Language: The Role of Conjunctions

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine whether and at what level of proficiency the meaning of conjunctions is comprehended by adult L2 learners, and whether and at what level of proficiency conjunctions facilitate integration of information in text. Subjects were sixty immigrant or foreign ESL students and thirty-six students whose first language was English. Subjects completed a series of tasks focussing on intrasentential, intersentential and discourse level comprehension of conjunctions. They also read three college level one-page texts, which could appear in one of three versions: normal-intact, implicit-all conjunctions omitted, and highlighted-all conjunctions printed in bold typeface. Each text was followed by a set of high-level comprehension questions focussing on logical relationships in these texts. Analyses have shown that a discourselevel measure of knowledge of conjunctions was more closely related to how L2 learners comprehend logical relationships in written discourse than were discrete, sentence level items. In addition, the more advanced ESL students were more capable of inferencing or using available logical relationships under the three text versions than were the intermediate ESL students. Finally, highlighting. conjunctions had an adverse effect on intermediate level students and a facilitating effect on the advanced level students. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.