nassaji - schema theory

Language Learning ISSN 0023-8333

Schema Theory and Knowledge-BasedProcesses in Second Language ReadingComprehension: A Need for AlternativePerspectives

Hossein Nassaji

University of Victoria

How is knowledge represented and organized in the mind? What role does it play in

discourse comprehension and interpretation? What are the exact mechanisms whereby

knowledge-based processes are utilised in comprehension? These are questions that

have puzzled psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists for years. Despite major de-

velopments in the field of second language (L2) reading over the last two decades,

many attempts at explaining the role of knowledge in L2 comprehension have been

made almost exclusively in the context of schema theory, a perspective that provides an

expectation-driven conception of the role of knowledge and considers that preexisting

knowledge provides the main guiding context through which information is processed

and interpreted. In this article, I first review and critically analyze the major assumptions

underlying schema theory and the processes that it postulates underlie knowledge repre-

sentation and comprehension. Then I consider an alternative perspective, a construction-

integration model of discourse comprehension, and discuss how this perspective, when

applied to L2 reading comprehension, offers a fundamentally different and more detailed

account of the role of knowledge and knowledge-based processes that L2 researchers

had previously tried to explain within schema-theoretic principles.

Keywords Schema theory, knowledge-based processes, text-based processes, L2 read-

ing comprehension, construction-integration models

Introduction

Any attempt to explain the processes whereby the text is understood entails

a profound understanding of the cognitive processes in which knowledge is

The author would like to thank Alister Cumming, Cordon Wells, three anonymous reviewers, and

the editor, Nick Ellis, for helpful comments on initial drafts of this paper.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hossein Nassaji, Linguistics

Department, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, Victoria, BC, Canada VSW 3P4.

Language Learning 57:Suppl. 1, June 2007, pp. 79–113 79C© 2007 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

Nassaji A Need for Alternative Perspectives

represented, processed, and used in comprehension. The concept of schema

was originally proposed by Bartlett (1932), a follower of Gestalt psychology, to

account for how information in stories and events is reconfigured in memory for

further recall. Bartlett believed that understanding and recall take place mainly

in the context of past experience and with reference to the relevant information

in memory. He then used the term “schema” to refer to the organization of

such past experience. Bartlett, however, did not explicate the nature of this

organization. It was later on in the 1970s and 1980s, and as a consequence of

the advances in computer science and the researchers’ interests in modeling

human cognition in the field of artificial intelligence at this time, that schema

theory was developed and emerged as a theoretical framework to describe the

structure and the role of knowledge in the mind (e.g., Minsky, 1975; Schank,

1982; Schank & Abelson, 1977).

Schema theory provided new and exciting developments in the field of

cognitive psychology. The theory was used to explain and interpret a host of

cognitive processes, such as inferencing, remembering, reasoning, and problem

solving, and served as an impetus for a large volume of experimental research in

learning, comprehension, and memory (e.g., Adams & Collins, 1979; Anderson,

1984; Anderson & Pearson 1984; Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz,

1977; Bloom, 1988; Bransford & Franks, 1971; Bransford & Johnson, 1972;

McDaniel & Kerwin, 1987; Schallert, 1991).

One of the major insights of schema theory lay in drawing attention to the

constructive nature of the reading process and to the critical role of the reader

and the interaction between the text and the reader’s background knowledge.

These developments greatly influenced second language (L2) comprehension

research and instruction, resulting in a large volume of insightful research on

evaluating and demonstrating the role of conceptual and background knowledge

in L2 reading comprehension and instruction (e.g., Alderson & Urquhart, 1988;

Barry & Lazarte, 1995; Carrell, 1987, 1992; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Carrell

& Wise, 1998; Floyd & Carrell, 1987; Hudson, 1982; Lee, 1986; Peretz &

Shoham, 1990, Roller & Matambo, 1992; Steffenson & Joag-Dev, 1984; Tan,

1990).

However, the observation that background knowledge contributes to com-

prehension is not at issue in this article. Although the relationship between

background knowledge and reading comprehension has often been found to be

far more complex than is usually assumed in both first language (L1) and L2

(see, for L2, Bernhardt 1991; Bugel & Buunk, 1996; Carrell & Wise, 1998;

Hudson, 1982; and see, for L1, Valenica & Stallman, 1989), few would dispute

the observation that background knowledge is critical to comprehension (see

Language Learning 57:Suppl. 1, June 2007, pp. 79–113 80


Carver, 1992, for a contrary opinion). Rather, my focus is on how background

knowledge and the principles underlying its use and interaction with other

sources of information should be conceptualized in L2 reading comprehension.

In this context, a distinction needs to be made between background knowl-edge and a theory of that knowledge. This distinction is necessary to prevent

confusion between “what” and “how,” or knowledge, and the way its represen-

tation and use is conceptualized and explained. In L2 research, the two notions

of background knowledge and schema theory have sometimes been equated

and/or used interchangeably (e.g., Carrell, 1983, 1985; Carrell & Eisterhold,

1983).

The present article is organized into three sections. The first section dis-

cusses the major assumptions underlying schema theory as a theory of knowl-

edge, evaluating them in light of research in the field of reading and cognitive

psychology. The second section considers an alternative perspective and dis-

cusses how such a perspective offers a fundamentally different and more detailed

account of the role of knowledge and knowledge-based variables previously ex-

plained in terms of schema-theoretic principles in comprehension. In the last

section, I discuss the implications of this analysis for L2 reading theory and

research.

Schema Theory: Key Issues and Assumptions

The notion of schema and schema theory has had broad theoretical applica-

tions in the field of cognitive psychology. Taking different forms, the concept

has been used to describe the structure of knowledge in a variety of domains.

Being defined as “scripts” (Schank & Abelson, 1977), “plans” (Schank, 1982),

and “frames” (Minsky, 1975), schemata have been used to describe the struc-

ture of knowledge of ordinary events. The concept has also been used to de-

scribe the structure and orgnisation of linguistic and discourse knowledge, re-

sulting in the use of a number of other terms such as “sentence schemata”

(Winograd, 1983), “story schemata” (Johnson & Mandler, 1980; Mandler,

1978), “formal/rhetorical schemata,” “content schemata” (Carrell, 1984), “tex-

tual schemata” (Swaffar, 1988), and “symbolic schemata” (Oller, 1995). That

the concept has been used so ubiquitously and diversely has been discussed as

one of the major problems of schema theory in the literature (e.g., Brewer &

Treyens, 1981; Brown, 1979; Sadoski, Paivio, & Goetz, 1991; Taylor & Crocker,

1981). However, in all of these areas, the major strengths of the theory have

been argued to stem from the insights it provides into understanding the struc-

ture of knowledge and the way knowledge is represented and used in learning,

81 Language Learning 57:Suppl. 1, June 2007, pp. 79–113


comprehension, and inferencing (Anderson, 1984; Anderson & Pearson, 1984;

Rumelhart, 1980; Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977). In this context, three major is-

sues have been the focus of discussion and examination: (a) how knowledge is

represented in the mind: (b) how knowledge is used in comprehension: and (c)

how inferences are made in comprehension. In what follows, I will discuss and

critically examine each of these issues as conceptualized by schema theory.

How Knowledge Is Represented in the MindThe issue of how knowledge is represented in the mind is a theoretically vexing

question, the discussion of which has been influenced not only by compet-

ing and at times radically different theoretical positions but also by different

epistemological and philosophical beliefs. Reviewing the pertinent research lit-

erature, Alba and Hasher (1983) identified five major processes postulated by

schema-theoretic views to underlie how knowledge is represented in the mind.

These processes are selection, abstraction, interpretation, integration, and re-

construction. According to schema theory, mental representations are formed

selectively; that is, of all the information in a given situation, only that part of

the information that is related to the schema activated at the time of encoding is

selected for the purpose of representation. Mental representations are also ab-

stractive in that of all the information present, only its semantic components are

extracted to be encoded in memory, not its surface components. Schema theory

suggests that interpretation of new information hinges on its congruency with

the schema currently activated. Individual pieces of information cannot exist in

the mind on their own either; they have to be integrated into an organized and

coherent global representation. Finally, the theory presumes that readers recall

or reconstruct the information with reference to the schema activated during

encoding.

Alba and Hasher (1983) provided an extensive review of the studies that have

examined these processes, concluding that the quality, amount, and the com-

plexity of information represented in the mind and remembered is far greater

than what could possibly be produced by what they called the reductive schema-

theoretic processes. The studies they cited have shown that our memory for

information embodies many more formal details than what the abstraction pro-

cesses of schema theory predict. Even the lexical and syntactic details of a

message are processed and encoded in memory (Kintsch & Bates, 1977). A

further assumption that syntactic and lexical formats will be stored but fade

away quickly does not seem to be supported by research, which has shown

that these properties of messages could not only be remembered (Anderson &

Paulson, 1977; Keenan, McWhinney, & Mayhew, 1977) but also retained for as



long as a week after the presentation of the information (Christiaansen, 1980).

Research also suggests that the meaning components of a message, while help-

ful, are not necessary for integration processes. Integration can take place even

when items do not comprise any meaning relationships, such as letter-digits or

nonsense syllables (e.g., Katz & Gruenewald, 1974; Small, 1975). Such evi-

dence poses serious trouble for schema theory, which theorizes that integration

occurs at an abstract and semantic level.

How Knowledge Is Used in ComprehensionThree assumptions are implicit in schema-theoretic approaches concerning the

way knowledge is utilized in comprehension: (a) that schemata are preexisting

knowledge structures stored in the mind, (b) that comprehension is a process

of mapping the information from the text onto these preexisting knowledge

structures, and (c) that knowledge-based processes are predictive and reader-

driven.

Certain difficulties arise from these assumptions about the role of knowl-

edge in comprehension. First of all, the idea that our knowledge base exists

in preexisting formats provides a very static and inflexible view of the role of

knowledge, which is at variance with the dynamic nature of knowledge in hu-

man cognition. After all, the notion of schemata as prestructured frameworks

activated and used during comprehension comes from computer science and the

field of artificial intelligence. Such schematic patterning assumes permanence,

frame-likeness, and long-term internal connection and advances the idea that

the mind is like a machine containing knowledge in a form that can be acces-

sible whenever needed (Iran-Nejad, 1987; Kintsch, 1988; Kintsch & Mannes,

1987). This storage conception of the role of the mind is notably limited in its

explanation of many areas of human learning, which involve productivity and

creativity of knowledge (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1996; see Case, 1996, for a

discussion of the different views on knowledge in education).

A second difficulty involves a bias toward activation and use rather than con-

struction in comprehension. Although schema theorists suggest that schemata

can be created, changed, modified, and used (Anderson, 1977; Anderson &

Pearson, 1984; Rumelhart, 1980), the bulk of the literature on schema theory

has emphasized using and activating rather than creating schemata. Bransford

(1985) argued that although in education the issue of “schema acquisition” is

paramount, “nearly all the experiments used to support schema theory involve

situations where students are prompted to activate preexisting schema” (p. 389).

In this view, if readers do not have the appropriate schema (or if they do have it

but don’t activate it), comprehension will simply fail (Carrell, 1984; Lee, 1997;



Rumelhart, 1980). However, if we assume that in order to understand texts,

readers must activate an already existing schema, the question is raised as to

how readers determine how to read before activating that schema (Norris &

Phillips, 1987). This means that the reader should not be able to proceed before

using a schema. Yet, in order to use the schema, the reader must have already

understood the text, “because for something to be information, and not just ink

marks on a page, it must be understood. However, for the ink marks on a page to

be understood one must, by hypothesis in schema theory, have a schema. This

leads to a problem wherein schemata are needed to fill slots in schemata ad

infinitum” (Norris & Phillips, p. 293). This, as Norris and Phillips pointed out,

is a vicious cycle and schema theory does not adduce any executive mechanism

to stop the cycle.

Another difficulty arises from attempts to reify abstractions and attribute

actual existence to conceptual notions (Sadoski et al., 1991). Sadoski et al.

argued that “schemata are, by most accounts, abstractions derived from ex-

perience that exist in a potential, nonspecific state, awaiting input,” so these

notions cannot exist “isolated from any of the examples that gave rise to it”

(p. 467). Such notions, these researchers contended, are problematic for scien-

tific theorizing because in such cases it is difficult to formulate alternatives or

define variables that could be adequately investigated.

I take a specific instance of this dilemma. Schema theory suggests that

for different concepts there are abstract prototypical schemata that are stored

in memory in terms of features necessary for all instances of those concepts

(Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Rumelhart, 1977, 1980). The assumption is that

there exist certain shared features that can be represented in the form of category

types. However, it has been very difficult to determine what these defining

features are and how they are represented (see Keil, 1989, for a discussion of

this issue). Anderson and Pearson (1984) also noted the difficulty with this view.

Citing early scholars such as Wittgenstein (1953), who showed the difficulty

of stipulating features needed for most of the familiar concepts, Anderson and

Pearson suggested that, if that is the case, “the basis for positing that knowledge

consists of abstract summaries of particular cases begins to erode” (p. 267).

A fourth issue concerns the way the role of background knowledge is con-

ceptualized by schema theory. Schema theory suggests that background knowl-

edge constitutes the main guiding context through which information is sieved

to be interpreted (Schank, 1978; Schank & Abelson, 1977). However, it is now

quite established that the comprehension process does not proceed in such a

top-down mode. Research in the field of L1 language reading comprehension

has shown that individual words in a text are processed visually even when they



are highly predictable in the context (Balota, Pollatsck, & Rayner, 1985; Pollat-

sek, 1993; Rayner, 1986; Rayner & Sereno, 1994). The top-down view of the

role of knowledge has lost much of its previous theoretical appeal in L2 reading,

too. A growing body of L2 research now exists to document the critical role of

lower level processes in L2 reading comprehension (e.g., Haynes & Carr, 1990;

Horiba, 1996; Koda, 1992, 1998, 1999; Nassaji & Geva, 1999; Segalowitz,

Poulsen, & Komoda, 1991; Segalowitz, Segalowitz, & Wood, 1998).

As a consequence of these developments, most of the current models of

L2 reading comprehension are interactive in that L2 comprehension is consid-

ered to be a process consisting of both data-driven and reader-driven processes

(e.g., Bernhardt, 1991; Carrell, Devine, & Eskey, 1988; Grabe, 1991; Swaffar,

1988; Swaffar, Arens, & Byrnes, 1991). However, it is important to note that

none of these models specifies how the reading system works and how the in-

teraction between the different knowledge sources takes place (Brown, 1998).

Furthermore, certain areas of L2 reading still seem to be biased implicitly or

explicitly toward the reader-driven conceptions of the role of knowledge. This

bias is strongly discernible in the field of L2 reading instruction (Paran, 1996).

Even in the area of L2 research, there is still a relatively much larger volume

of research on the role of top-down conceptual variables than lower level text-

based variables. In particular, attempts at understanding and explaining the role

of conceptual variables in L2 research are still made almost exclusively in the

context of schema and schema theory (see Fitzgerald, 1995). I will discuss some

of these areas later, and then will show how they can be dealt with and explained

in a more detailed manner by an alternative view of the role of knowledge in

L2 reading comprehension.

How Inferences Are Made in ComprehensionInferencing is one of the most widely accepted schema-theoretic notions; it is

assumed to be mostly made on the basis of the reader’s prior schemata (Anderson

& Pearson, 1984). There is no doubt that successful comprehension depends

on inferencing at all levels of text comprehension, ranging from connecting

text to background knowledge, different parts of the texts to one another, and

known elements to unknowns. However, there is extensive disagreement among

psychologists as to how these processes take place.

Within a schema-theoretic perspective, Anderson and Pearson (1984) iden-

tified four types of inference in reading comprehension. These are (a) schema-

selection, the inference made about what schema among many potential ones

should be used to comprehend a particular text; (b) schema instantiation, the

inference about what slots of the selected schema should be instantiated or



what values should be assigned to a particular slot of a selected schema; (c) de-

fault inferencing, which involves assigning default values to slots of an already

activated schema; and (d) absence of knowledge inferencing, which involves

drawing conclusions in the absence of certain knowledge. Anderson and Pearson

did not elaborate on the fourth kind of inferencing but illustrated it with logic:

“If X were true, I would know it were true. Since I do not know X to be true, it

is probably false” (pp. 269–270).

There are several studies that have been designed to provide support for these

different types of inferencing. For example, a series of studies was conducted

by Anderson and his colleagues to demonstrate evidence for schema-selection

inferences (Anderson & Pichert, 1978; Anderson, Pichert, & Shirey, 1983;

Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz, 1977). These studies presented people

with ambiguous passages that could be read and interpreted in different ways.

According to Anderson and Pearson (1984), readers interpret ambiguous texts

differently because of the different schemata they select based on the different

clues available in the text. Anderson et al. (1977), for example, asked college

students to read two texts, each allowing two different interpretations; one could

be interpreted as involving either a prisoner trying to escape from a prison or

a wrestler trying to escape from a hold by his rival in a wrestling match, and

the other as a card game or a music practice. The results indicated that readers

who had a musical background interpreted the second passage as a passage

about music and those who had a card-playing background interpreted the

same passage as a passage about card games.

Other studies have used vague passages that are difficult to understand and

remember without knowing what the passages are about. An example of these

studies is a classic study by Bransford and Johnson (1972), in which people were

presented with two vague passages: one the Balloon Serenade passage and the

other the Washing Clothes passage. One group received the vague passages with

titles and the other group without. The results indicated that those people who

received the passages with titles had much better comprehension and recall

than those who received them without titles. Anderson and Pearson (1984)

argued that these studies provide support for schema-instantiation inferencing:

To understand such passages, readers must use an already selected schema to

make sense of the vague passage by instantiating its slots and filling the slots

and gaps within the activated schema.

Although the above studies provide relevant evidence for the role of back-

ground knowledge, they have been questioned on interpretive and methodolog-

ical grounds. Sadoski et al. (1991) questioned the validity and generalizability

of these studies, arguing that “their reliance on bizarre texts calls into question



their relevance to the reading of naturally occurring texts” (p. 470). These re-

searchers argued that although all texts may have some degree of ambiguity,

a normal text is never amenable to such vastly different interpretations as per-

mitted in the texts used in Anderson et al.’s (1977) study. Studies using vague

passages (see Bransford & Johnson, 1972) have also been questioned on similar

methodological grounds. One of the problems with such studies concerns the

use of passages that are incomprehensible on their own. Alba and Hasher (1983,

p. 220) noted, “Their [Bransford and Johnson’s] passages contain no explicit,

concrete referents, and without a context to suggest exemplars for these ref-

erents, none is likely to be inferred.” These researchers maintained, “It is not

surprising then that recall of these materials is so poor; subjects had in effect

been presented with a set of unrelated sentences.”

Studies involving vague passages may be questionable on other grounds,

too. In such studies people are presented with not only “textually poor” passages

but with passages with “no context.” So there are two variables involved in

making the text difficult to understand: one the nature of the passage itself, and

the other the lack of context. If people performed poorly on such passages, it is

not at all clear why they did so. Was it because of the lack of context or because

of the poor quality of the text? It is quite possible that improvement of the

writing quality of the text could improve their comprehension and recall as well

(e.g., Cote, Goldman, & Saul, 1998; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996; Moravcsik

& Kintsch, 1993).

Among all the schema-based inferencing types, default inferencing is the

one most studied. According to schema theory, when a reader reads a text, a

certain schema is activated in which the reader fills in the slots with default

values of that schema. For example, if in reading a text, a reader encounters

a sentence such as “He pounded a nail into the wall,” the word “hammer,”

which is one of the default values associated with the verb “pound,” will be

simultaneously activated and used to fill in the empty slot for the agent of the

verb, leading to the inference that the pounding has been probably done with

“a hammer.”

Most of the support for default inferencing comes from research in which

people have been presented with certain information such as a sentence that

vaguely implies certain concepts, and then when tested, they have judged that

the information implicit in the sentence is part of the original sentence. This

reported misrecognition is taken as evidence for default values provided by

the schema (e.g., Anderson et al., 1976; Glenn, 1978; Johnson, Bransford,

& Solomon, 1973; Keenan & Kintsch, 1974). Such studies, however, have

been questioned on the grounds that the recall and the recognition techniques



used reflect processes that are reconstructive rather than constructive, that is,

processes used to recall or remember rather than processes used to understand

the text (McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992, 1995; Singer, 1988; Whitney, 1987). In

other words, it is not clear whether the inferences these studies have shown

to have occurred did actually occur during comprehension or during the time

subjects were tested to recall or to recognize the information.

Another line of support for default inferencing comes from studies that

have used “cues” for recall. These studies have shown that cues implied during

comprehension are effective retrieval cues for implicit information in the text.

McKoon & Ratcliff (1981) found that readers were faster in making inferences

about the instrument of an action (e.g., a hammer) when the sentence in the

paragraph of the text implicitly indicated that the instrument had been used

(“Bobby pounded the boards together with a nail” vs. “Bobby stuck the boards

together with glue”). Other studies, however, have shown that the same cues

could also be effective recall cues even when the information is explicitly pro-

vided in the text. Corbett and Dosher (1978) found that an instrument (e.g., a

shovel) could serve as an effective retrieval cue both for when the people were

presented with a sentence with a highly likely instrument for an action, such

as “The man dug a hole,” and also when the sentence explicitly mentioned the

instrument, such as “The man dug a hole with a pitchfork.” The researchers

concluded that the fact that even in the latter case where the instrument had been

explicitly mentioned, the word “shovel” could serve as an effective retrieval cue

suggests that such inferences could not have been due to using the sentence

schema but must have been due to semantic associations activated by the cues

themselves.

Finally, default inferencing assumes that semantic structures residing in the

reader’s mind equip the reader with a slot-filling mechanism that operates in a

continual manner during comprehension, thereby predicting an infinite number

of default inferences in comprehension (McNamara, Miller, & Bransford, 1991;

Whitney, 1987). Research, however, has produced little support for this predic-

tion. Numerous studies have shown that such inferences are not made so amply

in reading (e.g., Dosher & Corbett, 1982; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1981, 1992,

1995; Singer, 1979, 1980). These studies have shown that inferences about the

agent or instrument of actions (e.g., “a shovel” for “digging a hole”), which are

highly predicted schematically, are not in fact made in comprehension.

An Alternative View of the Role of Knowledge

The aim of this section is not to provide solutions to all of the problems of

schema theory. Unfortunately, at present no comprehension theory exists that



can take account of the whole range of issues discussed. Instead, the aim is to

consider an alternative perspective on the role of knowledge in comprehension

and to see how this perspective, particularly when supplemented with ideas

from memory research, can offer a more encompassing account of the role of

knowledge and knowledge-based processes in L2 reading comprehension. The

perspective is based on models influenced by research on human memory and

recall (e.g., Albrecht & O’Brien, 1993, Gernsbacher, 1995; Goldman & Varma,

1995; Kintsch, 1998; McClelland, 1987; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1986; Myers

& O’Brien, 1998; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983).

Their significant contribution has been the attempts to describe in an explicit

and detailed way the different cognitive processes involved in text comprehen-

sion and recall. These models differ from one another; however, they all share a

common conception of the role of knowledge in comprehension. Among these

models, I will consider Kintsch and his colleagues’ discourse comprehension

models, particularly, Kintsch’s (1988, 1998) construction-integration model.

This model has been well researched in recent years by L1 reading researchers

and is now one of the most widely accepted scientific models of text compre-

hension in the literature (Sadoski, 1999; Sanford & Garrod, 1998). Although it

would be imprecise to hold that the model has not been recognized in L2 read-

ing, it appears that its full potential application in L2 reading comprehension

theory and research has not been well explored.

Kintsch’s theory of text comprehension was developed in conjunction with

research on knowledge activation in psychology and the suggestion that the idea

of schema as posited in artificial intelligence approaches is not applicable in

the context of human comprehension. Kintsch (1988) believed that “prediction

or expectation-based systems that use frames or scripts do not adapt easily to

new contexts; pre-structured knowledge hardly ever is exactly in the form that

is needed” (p. 180). Kintsch argued that if schematic notions are “powerful

enough, they are too inflexible, and if they are general enough, they fail in their

constraining function” (p. 164). Thus, he and his colleagues began to develop an

alternative, less rigid, and less controlled view of the role of knowledge than the

one suggested by schema theory. The first version of their model was proposed

by Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) and then revised and elaborated on by van Dijk

and Kintsch (1983). Further revisions and elaborations were made by Kintsch

(1988), culminating in a considerably detailed version of the same model in

Kintsch’s recent (1998) book, Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition. The

model is too complex to review here, but I will consider its key ideas.

The model distinguishes between two main processes: a construction pro-

cess, whereby a textbase containing the propositional meaning of the text is



constructed from the textual input, and an integration process, whereby the

constructed textbase becomes integrated into the reader’s global knowledge,

forming a coherent mental representation of what the text is about or a situation

model. In Kintsch’s model, comprehension depends heavily on knowledge. But

the organization of knowledge is not “prestored” (cf. Schank, 1982); rather, it

emerges in the context of the task and is relatively unstructured as opposed to

the highly structured knowledge representations suggested by semantic theo-

ries such as schema theory (Kintsch, 1998). This organization is in the form

of an associative network of propositions,1 which are generated in a bottom-up

manner by the textual data.

The process of constructing the textbase occurs in several steps. First, text

propositions corresponding to the actual semantics of the text (also called mi-

cropropositions) are constructed directly from words and phrases in the text. The

propositions thus generated activate in the knowledge net other propositions and

their associates, both relevant and irrelevant, leading to a semantic network that

includes both coherent and incoherent representations. This net will be revised

subsequently through a process of elaboration and inference, in which the textual

propositions as well as their randomly generated neighbors will be constrained

by the reader’s knowledge base. Additional compatible propositions will also

be inferred. The final step involves organizing the textbase and assigning values

to the different concepts and propositions. At this stage, the propositions gen-

erated are linked together and become interconnected with both their previous

and subsequent propositions, representing the local meaning relationships (or

the “microstructure”), and with higher level concepts in the network, represent-

ing the more global relationships in the text (or the “macrostructure”). These

connections create a kind of local coherence between and across the different

individual propositions and between the propositions and the overall topic of

the discourse, which are then used to draw inferences. Once this initial semantic

net is constructed, the integration processes take over, in which the information

content produced so far becomes integrated into the larger discourse context,

generating a mental representation or situation model.

Integration is a fine-tuning process that occurs at all levels of text process-

ing, including word, sentence, and discourse levels. These processes occur in

short iterative cycles, in each of which a new network of textual meaning is

constructed, processed, and then immediately integrated with what is retained

in the working memory from the previous cycle; this is then repeated in new

cycles. The integration process goes on until all of the inconsistencies in the

mental representation of the text are eliminated, such that a coherent interpre-

tation emerges. It is important to note that all of these processes are automatic



and occur through connectionist principles, in which the more appropriate and

essential propositions about the current state of comprehension are augmented

and the less appropriate ones are inhibited in an associative manner (Kintsch,

1998). However, if this automatic process fails, the reader may engage in more

strategic problem-solving processes (Garrod & Sanford, 1998; Kintsch, 1988;

van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983).

How propositions are actually constructed is beyond the scope of this ar-

ticle. In fact, Kintsch’s construction-integration model itself did not include

any specific mechanism for how propositions are generated, but there are now

different accounts available that specify how these meaning units are con-

structed. One prevalent account is that there are certain lower level lexico-

syntactic and sentence-parsing mechanisms that operate on the textual data to

produce or guide the production of propositions (for further detail, see Kintsch,

1992; Perfetti, 1990; Perfetti & Britt, 1995; Turner, Britton, Andraessen, &

McCutchen, 1996).

As noted earlier, in the construction-integration view, both the construc-

tion and integration processes operate in a connectionist manner. Central to

this view is the idea that the knowledge that guides the comprehension system

is not outside the text nor does the processing system proceed by generating

top-down expectations and hypotheses and checking them against textual infor-

mation as suggested by schema theory. Rather, knowledge is generated through

activation patterns initiated by the textual information and the progressive up-

grading of previously established associations in the text. This view of the role of

knowledge in comprehension is currently shared by many other computational

and memory-based models (e.g., Cook, Halleran, & O’Brien, 1998; Gerrig

& McKoon, 1998; McKoon, Gerrig, & Greene, 1996), in which knowledge

plays its role through a “fast-acting passive resonance process” (Cook et al.,

p. 110), rather than through a matching process, as suggested by schema theory.

In these models, the information generated from the text is stored in the working

memory and functions as a signal in an associative manner to all of the informa-

tion in long-term memory. The information from the discourse representation

and general world knowledge gets activated simultaneously in response to this

signal.

Connectionist computational models have several characteristics that make

them different from other models. In these models, the comprehension-

processing system is not controlled by knowledge schemata, nor is the in-

fluence of knowledge schemata from higher levels fed back into lower levels of

processing (McClelland, 1987). Comprehension proceeds through a constraint-

satisfaction mechanism, which includes a collective satisfaction of all sorts



of constraint, such as syntactic, semantic, rhetorical, and pragmatic (Golden

& Rumelhart, 1991; Kintsch, 1988; O’Brien, Shank, Myers, & Rayner, 1988;

Weaver & Kintsch, 1996). Although the knowledge that guides the processing

is primarily text based, the architecture of the system is such that it provides for

the influence of multiple sources of information in constructing meaning rep-

resentations, with the information received from input further constraining the

mechanism. The information-processing system is multilevel; that is, mental

representations of texts are made at many different levels ranging from a letter

feature level to a word level to a syntactic level, then to thematic and to dis-

course levels. These levels are activated textually, leading to information built

up through reciprocal interactions occurring both within and between levels.

Background knowledge influences are not predictive, but, rather, selective; that

is, context exerts its influence “primarily by selecting among alternatives as they

are becoming activated bottom-up” (McClelland, p. 13). Consequently, textual

ambiguities get resolved by selecting from among alternatives that have been

all activated before the contextual processes begin. In these models, inferences

are made as a result of activations spreading rapidly from one part of the text to

another in a context-free and non-problem-solving manner (Kintsch). They are

therefore different from the more strategic mechanisms that might operate after

comprehension, when the reader is prompted by retrieval tasks, or when diffi-

culties arise during comprehension (e.g., Graesser & Bower, 1990; Graesser &

Zwaan, 1995; Singer, Graesser, & Trabasso, 1994).

Application of the Construction-IntegrationModel in L2 Reading

The construction-integration model can be applied to different areas of L2 read-

ing. The idea of textbase-construction processes and the principles underlying

integration processes, particularly when combined with ideas from memory and

recall research, may help us understand and explain the effects of many of the

knowledge-based processes not explained adequately in the context of schema

theory in L2 reading. I will discuss how this framework can also contribute to

resolving many of the inconsistencies in the findings of L2 reading studies on

the role of linguistic and background knowledge, particularly those conducted

to provide support for schema theory but that yielded findings inconsistent with

schema-theoretic predictions.

One of the areas where schema theory has been widely drawn upon in L2

research concerns situations in which researchers have wanted to explain the

amply demonstrated comprehension advantage of various top-level features



such as the main theme or idea in a text or the more interesting and important

information in a story. A schema-based explanation of the comprehension ad-

vantage of these features suggests that the reader comprehends top-level features

better simply as a function of the relevant schema that he or she brings to the

task of interpreting the text.

This explanation suggests that the relevant schema contains and represents

ideas in the mind in a particular order and at an already commensurate level

of importance. This preexisting mental representation of ideas then acts as an

advance organizer during comprehension and helps the reader recognize, ar-

range, and interpret the ideas accordingly. The utilization of the same schema

during recall allows readers to reconstruct the information encoded in compre-

hension and helps them to recall these ideas in their respective order or level of

importance as well.

An alternative explanation, however, suggests that the comprehension ac-

cessibility of top-level ideas is related to far more complex cognitive processes,

which involve not only the reader’s previous mental representation of ideas

but also the nature of the propositions contained in the text, as well as the

way they are encoded and maintained in memory. As noted earlier, a key no-

tion in the construction-integration model is the idea of establishing an initial

“textbase” that, when created successfully, gives rise to a semantically ordered

hierarchical structure of information. This hierarchically structured textbase,

along with the varied link strengths of its propositions, can then explain the

effect of a host of variables, such as referential and co-referential variables,

concreteness, abstractness, and the rhetorical and top-level variables of texts

(see Freedle, 1997). These effects can be explained in terms of superordinate

and subordinate effects in the hierarchy, which suggest that the ideas situated

higher in the hierarchy are understood and recalled better than those that are

lower. These effects can also be explained in terms of the degree and depth

of cognitive processing of higher level ideas. The higher level ideas, due to

their overarching connection with various lower level ideas, are more avail-

able for processing. Due to their position, they are referred to more during

encoding, and hence are called into, and remain in, working memory more

often than other ideas (Alba & Hasher, 1983). In other words, they receive

increased processing attention and hence more chance of being rehearsed in

the working memory. These processes then enhance both the comprehension

and recall of the top-level or more important ideas in the text. This assump-

tion is different from that of schema-based explanations, which assume that

these advantages are mostly produced as a result of top-down extratextual

operations.



Cross-linguistic research has demonstrated that L2 readers, even when they

are very fluent bilinguals, are discernibly slower when reading a text in their L2

than in their L1 (e.g., Favreau & Segalowitz, 1982; Mack, 1986; Segalowitz,

1986). It has also been shown that L2 readers are more bound to text or need to

repeat reading the same text more often than L1 readers in order to understand

it (e.g., Bernhardt, 1987; Bernhardt & Kamil, 1995; Carrell, 1988; Clarke,

1980; Horiba, 1996, 2000). These findings have often been interpreted by the

proponents of schema theory as evidence that L2 readers are weaker in using

higher level strategies when reading than are L1 readers. Carrell argued that

“the most obvious cause of over-reliance on the text in comprehension is the

absence of relevant knowledge structures to utilize in top-down processing”

(p. 103). In this view, skilled L2 readers, who possess the necessary syntactic and

semantic knowledge, may still lack adequate top-down strategies to sample the

text rapidly or may simply fail to use their conceptual knowledge when reading

for comprehension, so they have to slow down and process many small-scale

meaning relationships instead.

Research evidence, however, has strongly challenged the above specula-

tions. Horiba, van den Broek, and Fletcher (1993) found that L2 readers were

quite capable of not only using higher level information (e.g., the causal struc-

ture of the text) but using it even more extensively than L1 readers. McLeod

and McLaughlin (1986) found that L2 readers were still processing the text in a

slow, word-by-word fashion even when higher order knowledge was available

and even when they were completely able to use higher level prediction strate-

gies on the basis of relevant knowledge. Comparing the sentence processing

strategies of native and L2 skilled and less skilled German readers, Bernhardt

(1986) found that it was the less skilled L2 readers rather than skilled readers

who, by relying more on the higher order semantic and L1 processing strategies,

skipped and utilized textual syntactic features less extensively when processing

L2 texts. Studies examining the use of higher order thinking and problem-

solving strategies in reading have also reported significant similarities between

first and second language reading (e.g., Cumming, Rebuffot, & Ledwell, 1989;

Sarig, 1987). Based on these findings, and on the fact that L2 readers, particu-

larly when they are adult readers, bring to the task a wide range of higher level

processing skills they have already developed in their L1 (Pienemann, 1998), it

is very hard to accept that L2 readers are weaker in their ability in using higher

level prediction processes than L1 readers.

The difference between L1 and L2 readers, however, may be alternatively ex-

plained in terms of their construction processes and of the difference in the effi-

ciency with which they can establish the necessary textbase for comprehension.



This efficiency involves a broad range of fluent and automatized text-processing

skills, including basic lexical and word-recognition processes such as phono-

logical and orthographic processes (Segalowitz, 1986; Segalowitz et al., 1991;

syntactic processes (Boland, 1997; Frazier & Clifton, 1996; Hoover & Dwivedi,

1998), sentence-parsing skills (Juffs & Harrington, 1995; Kintsch, 1992;

Perfetti & Britt, 1995; Turner et al., 1996), as well as the ability to use knowl-

edge of causal and rhetorical structures in comprehension (Horiba, 1996, 2000).

Here a distinction needs to be drawn between having knowledge, including

syntactic, lexical, or even pragmatic knowledge, and the ability to utilize that

knowledge efficiently for comprehension (Eskey & Grabe, 1988; Fender, 2001).

In the construction-integration model, readers who are more efficient and faster

in the above construction processes are those who take less time to establish

the initial textbase for comprehension. It is this efficiency that determines the

way working memory resources should be allocated during the comprehension

process. Skilled readers, who are able to use these processes more fluently,

need fewer working memory resources to derive propositional meanings in the

construction phase and hence are left with more memory resources for higher

order comprehension and inferential processes during the integration phase.

This may explain why less skilled L2 readers should read slowly or reread the

text. Due to less efficient construction processes, these readers’ working mem-

ory resources may be used up in generating the textbase. Consequently, such

readers may need to read the text more slowly or may need to reread it so that

in the subsequent readings they can have enough working memory resources

for the second phase, namely, integrating meanings with prior knowledge and

constructing a coherent mental representation of the text. This explanation is in

line with Just and Carpenter’s (1992) recent capacity theory of comprehension,

which suggests that in using the limited computational resources available, the

reader’s priority is with the efficiency of the lower level processes rather than

with that of the higher level ones (cf. Hirsch, 1987).

The construction-integration model may also provide a framework within

which we can interpret and account for many of the findings of L2 reading

studies on the role of background knowledge, which appeared to produce find-

ings incompatible with schema-theoretic predictions. Carrell (1983) investi-

gated the role of three important components of background knowledge in L2

reading: text familiarity, context, and transparency, using advanced and high-

intermediate L2 and native readers. Using similar materials and procedures

as in Bransford and Johnson’s (1972) study, Carrell defined familiarity as the

reader’s experience with the text content; context as plus/minus a title and a pic-

ture page; and transparency as plus/minus concrete content words in the texts.



Schema theory predicts that when a passage appears within a specific context,

it should be understood and recalled better than when it is without a context.

In particular, when L2 readers have prior knowledge about a passage they read,

they ought to comprehend and recall that passage better than when they do

not have as much prior knowledge about that passage. Carrell’s study, however,

provided no positive support for any of the background-knowledge variables

tested in the recall performance of the advanced L2 readers. More surprisingly,

the unfamiliar passage was recalled better than the familiar passage by both

the advanced L2 and L1 native readers. To explain such unexpected findings,

Carrell proposed that schema-based processes were simply not operative in the

case of the L2 readers: “Neither advanced nor high-intermediate ESL readers

appear to utilize context or textual cues” (p. 199). Carrell argued that L2 readers

do not behave like L1 readers: “they may be processing the literal meaning of

the text, but they are not making the necessary connections between the text

and the appropriate background information” (p. 200).

However, there are problems with this interpretation of the results. First, top-

down or bottom-up processes rarely exist in isolation in reading comprehension

in either L1 or L2 reading. Second, in Carrell’s (1983) study, the unfamiliar text

was recalled better than the familiar text by both L1 and L2 readers; thus, the

results cannot be simply explained in terms of the difference between L1 and

L2 reading, nor can they be explained in terms of the low level of language

proficiency of the L2 readers because they were highly advanced L2 readers.2

Lee (1986) replicated Carrell’s (1983) study using the same materials and

procedures. In Lee’s study, the readers were also advanced in their L2 profi-

ciency, but they were second language readers of Spanish. However, Lee asked

them to recall the passage in their L1 (in Carrell’s study, the recall had been

done in L2) because he thought that the reason Carrell did not find any role for

background-knowledge variables might have been due to the reader’s inability

to do the recall in their L2.3 Lee found a main effect for context. However, he

came up with findings similar to those of Carrell regarding familiar/unfamiliar

texts, although in the case of Lee’s study, the pattern of interactions was more

complex. Nevertheless, he still found that his readers recalled the unfamiliar

text better than the familiar text under the no-context condition. Using similar

materials and procedures, Roller and Matambo (1992) investigated the role of

the same background-knowledge variables but with different readers. This time,

Roller and Matambo used advanced bilingual readers who read the texts in their

L1, Shona, and in their L2, English. Roller and Matambo had predicted that

if the language proficiency threshold were a factor in determining the use of

context, then providing the context for L1 readers would at least improve their



recall performance. Contrary to this prediction, they found no effect for the role

of context, even when the readers were reading in their L1. Moreover, Roller

and Matambo found that their readers recalled the unfamiliar text better than

the familiar text. What was even more surprising was that the provision of con-

text negatively affected both the native and the L2 reader’s performance when

reading the unfamiliar text. In response to these findings, Roller and Matambo

remarked, “it is difficult to explain why this interaction occurred” (p. 136). They

held, “apparently, there may be other factors than familiarity which account for

the better recall of the unfamiliar Balloon Serenade passage” (p. 135).

What is evident here is that the results obtained in the above studies are

difficult to interpret in terms of schema-theoretic principles. Thus, they call for

alternative explanations, such as a construction-integration view of L2 read-

ing. As discussed earlier, in the construction-integration view, the initial and

the critical phase of comprehension is the construction of a textbase, which

contains the principal meaning relationships for the text (and is automatic and

less affected by the reader’s prior knowledge). For this process to be successful,

what is needed is the presence of adequate textual connections and cues for join-

ing and assembling the propositions and establishing the meaning relationships

during encoding (Kintsch, 1988; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996). These connec-

tions take place initially through argument overlap and propositional embedding

(Kintsch, 1974; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978), processes whereby concepts are

interconnected through arguments they share with either neighboring propo-

sitions, higher level propositions, or embedded propositions. It is the quality

of the shared arguments and embedded propositions, as well as the strength of

their association, that determines the creation of a coherent textbase. If the read-

ing passage lacks these necessary properties, as it did in the case of Bransford

and Johnson’s (1972) passages, these connections will not be appropriately es-

tablished and the construction process will be seriously impaired, resulting in

a poor and incoherent textbase. The lack of these connections would greatly

tax the working memory resources during encoding, causing the unconnected

propositions to remain longer in the working memory before any meaning rela-

tionships could be established (Gibson, 1998), which would then require either

more processing time and resources or lead to fewer propositions being gener-

ated during the construction process and then assembled and interpreted during

the integration process.

In the case of L2 readers, there are additional factors that can make the

construction-integration processes more complicated than in the case of L1

readers. A number of studies examining and comparing text-processing mech-

anisms in L1 and L2 reading comprehension have shown that skilled L2 readers



use text-processing procedures similar to those used by native L1 readers,

particularly in terms of using syntactic and semantic information (see Fender,

2001; Fitzgerald, 1995, for a review). Both L1 and L2 readers initially parse sen-

tences into smaller units such as words, phrases, and clauses, based on the lexical

and syntactic subcategorization information available, and then incrementally

integrate them into the larger discourse context (Frenck-Mestre & Pynte, 1997;

Hoover & Dwivedi, 1998; Juffs & Harrington, 1995). This integration process

has been shown to be heavily influenced by both lower level textual as well as

general higher level semantic/contextual and pragmatic information. However,

research has also shown that important text-processing differences exist among

L1 and L2 readers (Bernhardt, 1986; Cziko, 1980; Frenck-Mestre & Pynte;

Oller & Tullius, 1973). L2 readers are more constrained than L1 readers in

several important ways. First, L2 readers in general possess to a much lesser

degree that kind of socioculturally appropriate background knowledge shared

between L1 writers and readers (Bernhardt, 1991). This then would push them

to rely more on the textual linguistic data and their L2 linguistic competence

to extract meaning from text than L1 readers do (Bossers, 1991; Horiba, 1996;

Taillefer, 1996; Zwaan & Brown, 1996). Both Horriba (1996, 2000) and Taille-

fer found that L2 readers drew heavily on their linguistic ability when they

were reading various L2 texts. Taillefer found that L2 readers used this knowl-

edge not only when they were reading L2 texts for meaningful details but also

when they were reading L2 texts to do tasks as simple as scanning for specific

information. Taillefer also found that as the reading task became more cogni-

tively complex, the role of linguistic ability became more paramount (see also

Bossers, 1992; Cummins, 1980; Cziko). More importantly, Taillefer found that

as the L2 learner became more linguistically proficient, other variables, such

as the use of L1 higher level reading strategies, did not gain more momentum

than L2 language proficiency in extracting meaning from text. In other words,

as the learners in these studies became more proficient, reliance on textual and

linguistic processes did not decrease (cf. Alderson, 1984).

Furthermore, L2 readers are by definition less fluent than their L1 counter-

parts in terms of their lower level linguistic processing skills, including the

efficiency of lexical and syntactic processes (Bates & MacWhinney, 1989;

Potter, So, von Eckardt, & Feldman, 1984). This limited efficiency has been

shown to exist even when L2 readers are highly advanced bilingual read-

ers (Favreau & Segalowitz, 1982; Mack, 1986; Segalowitz, 1986; Segalowitz

et al., 1991). Such constraints will then negatively affect L2 readers’ efficiency

in decoding the linguistic data for creating the appropriate textbase. This lim-

ited efficiency will cause a delay in the higher level interpretation processes



involved in comprehending connected L2 text, hence affecting integration pro-

cesses considerably (Haynes & Carr, 1990; Koda, 1994; Zwaan & Brown, 1996).

Importantly, inefficient syntactic and lexical processes will exhaust computa-

tional resources by placing a greater burden on the reader’s working memory

capacity, which would then decrease comprehension performance (Just & Car-

penter, 1992). These differences between L1 and L2 readers, combined with the

interactive effects of many other variables, such as those deriving from differ-

ences in L1 processing strategies (Bates & MacWhinney, 1981; Durgunoglu &

Hancin, 1992; Koda, 1990, 1993; MacWhinney, 1992; Sasaki, 1994), can then

explain why L2 readers in the schema-based studies reviewed above could not

comprehend and recall the text as successfully as L1 readers even when they

were advanced L2 readers and even when the text was highly familiar.

Another unexpected finding of the schema-based studies reviewed earlier

was that readers were able to recall the unfamiliar Balloon Serenade passage

better than the familiar Washing Clothes passage under a no-context condition.

The difference between the effectiveness of the textbase and the relative ease

with which the readers were able to construct a propositional content when read-

ing the Balloon Serenade passage (the unfamiliar passage) as opposed to when

reading the Washing Clothes passage (the familiar passage) may help explain

why this happened. As described by Roller and Matambo (1992), the Balloon

Serenade passage included more concrete and specific nominal references than

the Washing Clothes passage did. The more concrete and specific nature of the

unfamiliar passage could have allowed the readers to construct a more con-

crete, explicit—and hence high-quality—textbase by activating stronger nodes

and links in the working memory during the construction process and providing

the reader with more concrete information to work with during the integration

phase (Kintsch, 1992; Kintsch & Welsch, 1991; Tapiero & Otero, 1999). More-

over, in these studies not only did the researchers use recall protocols to test

the readers’ reading performance, but they also assessed the recall protocols in

terms of the accuracy of the propositional meanings contained in the text. By

doing so, they were possibly testing how well the readers had understood the

text at the textbase level rather than at the situation-model level (Brown, 1998).

In view of this explanation, it is possible that, if other methods of testing reading

comprehension had been used (see Riley & Lee, 1996) or if recall protocols had

been assessed in terms of other criteria, such as the reader’s elaborations and

inferences about the text (see Moravcsik & Kintsch, 1993; Tapiero & Otero;

Tardieu, Ehrlich, & Gyselinck, 1992), the results could have been different.

In addition to the studies reviewed above, there are other L2 studies that pro-

vide evidence for the validity of the application of the construction-integration



model in L2 reading. Evidence for the idea that comprehension and recall de-

pend on the efficacy of the textbase and the encoding of the properties of texts

can be seen in several recent studies (Carrell, 1992; Horiba, 1996; Horiba et al.,

1993; Taillefer, 1996; Walters & Wolf, 1986; Zwaan & Brown, 1996). Horiba

et al., for example, investigated how structural properties of texts affect readers’

mental representations of texts. Analyzing the reading-recall protocols of L2

readers in terms of two idea categories—structure-preserving ideas (defined as

information that also carries the structural property of the original text) and

meaning-preserving ideas (defined as the “core information” remembered)—

these researchers found that not only did L2 readers remember the structure-

preserving ideas but also the number of structure-preserving ideas in their recall

was much higher than that of meaning-preserving ideas. What these findings

seem to imply is that, while reading, the L2 readers encoded and stored the

rhetorical information as part of their mental representation of the text. These

findings are not consistent with the idea that what readers process and represent

in memory are only the semantics of the text. On the other hand, they are con-

sistent with, and provide support for, the idea that comprehension is a process

of creating a textbase (that includes the textual and rhetorical features) as well

as a knowledge-based interpretation of the text.

Carrell (1992) investigated the effect of implicit and explicit awareness of

text structure on the written recall protocols of high-intermediate English as a

second language (ESL) learners. Carrell found a significant effect of implicit

awareness of text structure on the reader’s recall performance; however, she

did not find a similar effect for explicit awareness of text structure. What this

finding suggests is (a) that readers make significant use of their knowledge of

text structure in organizing their recall protocols but (b) that they process and

encode such textual features without necessarily being aware of them. This

finding is not consistent with a problem-solving view of the role of knowl-

edge in comprehension, but it is consistent with a distinction between implicit

and explicit textbase processes (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978) and the idea that

the principles underlying explicit textual knowledge are not identical to those

underlying actual text representation processes.

Other evidence for a construction-integration view comes from studies that

have shown that linguistic proficiency and prior knowledge make important but

distinct contributions to reading comprehension (e.g., Barry & Lazarte, 1995,

1998; Chen & Donin, 1997; Hammadou, 1991). Barry and Lazarte (1995),

for example, found that while the linguistic complexity of L2 Spanish texts

had a significant effect on the proportion of core propositions recalled, prior



knowledge of the topic did not. In a follow-up study, Barry and Lazarte (1998)

found that prior knowledge of topics had a significant effect on the generation of

elaborations and inferences (see also Cumming et al., 1989; Zwaan & Brown,

1996). Investigating the effects of linguistic knowledge and domain-specific

knowledge on Chinese subjects’ reading of texts in both L1 and L2, Chen and

Donin found that linguistic knowledge had a consistent effect on lower level

lexical and syntactic processing, but that domain-specific knowledge had a

strong effect on higher level semantic and conceptual information but a minor

effect on lower level processes. As Chen and Donin also pointed out, it appears

that these findings cannot be explained by reading models in which lower level

processes are instantaneously affected by higher level processes. But a possible

explanation may come from models in which text comprehension involves

different levels of representation, some generated from the linguistic input and

the learner’s processing of the lower level lexical and syntactic content of the

text (e.g., the textbase) and others from higher level processes of integrating

that content with the reader’s conceptual and prior knowledge (e.g., situation-

model).

Finally, it is suggested that the above findings have at least three implications

for L2 reading research and theory: (a) It is necessary to distinguish between

different levels of meaning representations in L2 reading comprehension and

study these levels with reference to the different procedures involved in gen-

erating them; (b) different knowledge sources, linguistic or conceptual, may

involve different processes, which may have qualitatively differential effects on

different levels of representation in text comprehension; and (c) knowledge in

terms of explicit awareness, while helpful, may not be required for text pro-

cessing. These are the issues that should be considered when investigating the

role of different knowledge-based processes in L2 reading comprehension. In

this context, a construction-integration view of L2 reading may provide insights

into understanding these processes and explaining the possible independent and

interactive effects of the various processes involved in the different levels of

representation in L2 reading comprehension.

Conclusion

No one doubts that L2 reading comprehension is a function of the use of mul-

tiple sources of knowledge, including background knowledge. In this sense,

schema theory has led to useful insights by bringing to our attention the role

of this knowledge. However, it seems that knowledge-based processes and the



mechanisms underlying their representation and use in memory and compre-

hension are too complex to be accounted for by a simple expectation-driven

conception of the role of knowledge. A considerable body of L2 research ex-

ists on the role of various text-based and knowledge-based processes in L2

reading comprehension. However, this research has mostly focused on demon-

strating the importance of these processes rather than how they operate. We

cannot understand the nature of such processes unless we do more principled

and theory-based research that attempts to explore the complex mechanisms

underlying such processes. In seems that computational and memory-based

models, such as construction-integration models, provide a framework within

which we can explore the role of many of these processes in L2 reading com-

prehension. These models provide a system of rules and mechanisms for how

texts are processed, understood, and recalled. Thus, by applying these models

to L2 reading, we may be able to study and understand in greater depth how L2

readers comprehend and recall L2 texts. Moreover, these theories assume that

textual information functions like other kinds of input to memory, providing

an important link between the theories of discourse comprehension and other

theories of memory.

Revised version accepted 23 November 2001

Notes

1 Propositions are the smallest idea units that can be judged to be true or false. For

example, the sentence, “Jack sent a thank-you letter to Mary” contains three

propositions: (1) Jack sent a letter, (2) the letter was for Mary, and (3) the letter was

a thank-you letter.

2 See Hudson (1982), who found a greater effect of background knowledge for

beginning and intermediate L2 readers than for advanced L2 readers.

3 Chen and Donin (1997) found no significant effect for language of recall, whether

L1 or L2, on remembering the semantic content of text. In their study, Chinese

readers did not recall more information from the text when they were doing the

recall in their L1 (Chinese) compared to when they were doing so in their L2

(English). This lack of difference, the researchers suggested, could be partly

attributable to the greater processing demand involved in using two typologically

different languages such as Chinese and English in reading and recall and to the

fact that going back and forth from two distant languages might not be easier than

using one language in both reading and recall. Indeed, future research comparing

typologically similar and different languages in both reading and recall is needed to

further investigate the effect of language of recall.



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