Looking at and beyond the lexical surface in L2 reading comprehension: insights from a video-based study

ABSTRACT

In L2 reading, words and the concepts they denote frequently constitute an important vehicle or obstacle in the comprehension process. However, this has been rarely explored from a language awareness perspective. The current research therefore tailors the constructs of lexical awareness and conceptual awareness to L2 reading contexts by using a video-based approach within text-based cooperative learning environments. The corpus comprises data from 156 EFL learners in 9th grade at German schools who engaged in collaborative strategic reading tasks. The results of the qualitative content analysis demonstrate the multidimensionality of the two major constructs and provide insight into L2 learners’ degree of awareness as well as their need for further support. In particular, not only target-lexical and target-conceptual aspects need to be borne in mind, but also the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural dimensions arising from learners’ knowledge of other languages and from their prior life experience within specific sociocultural environments. The findings have been incorporated into a revised iceberg model of L2 lexical and conceptual awareness, which illustrates the potentially deceptive nature of the lexical surface as well as the continua of lexical and conceptual similarities and discrepancies across languages and cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Lexical awareness
• conceptual awareness
• EFL learners
• L2 reading
• video analysis
• qualitative content analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This article elaborates on the findings gained from the author's doctoral thesis. For a full presentation of the results see Schluer (2017).

2. ADEQUA stands for the ‘Adequacy of learning strategy use and teacher support actions’, with the first part (ADEQUA I) focusing on learners’ strategy use and the second part (ADEQUA II) on teachers’ support actions. The project was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in two subsequent grants (FI 684/13–1 and FI 684/13–2).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Schluer

Dr. Jennifer Schluer is a researcher and lecturer at the English department of the University of Kassel, Germany. She specialises in applied linguistics with a focus on foreign language research and intercultural communication. Her main research interests include written communication from a language and cultural awareness perspective, multilingualism, and English as a lingua franca in academic contexts.