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How Much Lexis is Necessary for Reading Comprehension?

Laufer, Batia·1992·Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics

Abstract

In Reading in a foreign language: a reading problem or a language problem ? Alderson (1984) ascribes poor reading in L2 to four possible causes: (a) poor reading ability in the first language; (b) inadequate knowledge of the foreign language; (c) incorrect strategies for reading in the foreign language; (d) reading strategies in the first language not being employed in the foreign language, due to inadequate knowledge of the foreign language. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Research works printed but not linked: 19

  1. Alderson, J.C. (1984). ‘Reading in a foreign language: a reading problem or a language problem?’, in Alderson, J.C. and Urquhart, A.H. (eds), Reading in a Foreign Language. London: Longman, pp. 1–27.
  2. Cohen, A.D., Glasman, B., Rosenbaum-Cohen, P.R., Ferrara, J. and Fine, J. (1979). ‘Reading English for specialized purposes: discourse analysis and the use of student informants’, TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 13, PP. 551–64. · doi:10.2307/3586449
  3. Davis, F.B. (1968). ‘Research in comprehension in reading’, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 4, pp. 499–545 (quoted in Nation and Coady, 1987). · DOI
  4. Davis, F.B. (1972). ‘Psychometric research on comprehension in reading’, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 7, pp. 628–78 (quoted in Nation and Coady, 1987). · DOI
  5. Deville, G. (1985). Measuring a FL learner’s lexical needs. Paper presented at the 5th LSP Symposium, Leuven, Belgium.
  6. Laufer, B. (1989). ‘What percentage of lexis is essential for comprehension’, in Lauren, C. and Nordman, M. (eds), From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 316–23.
  7. Laufer, B. and Sim, D.D. (1985a). ‘Taking the easy way out: non-use and misuse of contextual clues in EFL reading comprehension’, English Teaching Forum, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 7–10.
  8. Laufer, B. and Sim, D.D. (1985b). ‘Measuring and explaining the threshold needed for English for Academic Purposes texts’, Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 18, pp. 405–13. · DOI · Paper page
  9. Meara, P. and Buxton, B. (1987). ‘An alternative to multiple choice vocabulary tests’, Language Testing, Vol. 4, pp. 142–54. · DOI · Paper page
  10. Meara, P. and Jones, G. (1989). Eurocentres Vocabulary Test 10 KA. Zurich: Eurocentres.
  11. Nation, P. (1983a). ‘Testing and teaching vocabulary’, Guidelines 5 (RELC supplement), pp. 12–24.
  12. Nation, P. (1983b). Learning and Teaching Vocabulary. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University.
  13. Nation, P. and Coady, J. (1987). ‘Vocabulary and reading’, in Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. (eds), Vocabulary and Language Teaching. London: Longman, pp. 97–110.
  14. Ostyn, P. and Godin, P. (1985). ‘RALEX: an alternative approach to language teaching’, Modern Language Journal, Vol. 69, pp. 346–53. · DOI
  15. Ostyn, P., Vandecasteele, M., Deville, G. and Kelly, P. (1985). ‘Towards an optimal programme of FL vocabulary acquisition’, in Cornu, A.M., Vanparijs, J., Delaheye, M. and Baten, L. (eds), Beads or Bracelet? How do we approach LSP? Oxford University Press, pp. 292–305.
  16. Spearritt, D. (1972). ‘Identification of subskills of reading comprehension by maximum likelihood factor analysis’, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 8, PP 92–11 (quoted in Nation and Coady, 1987). · DOI
  17. Thorndike, E.L. (1973). ‘Reading as reasoning’, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 9, pp. 135–47 (quoted in Nation and Coady, 1987). · DOI · Paper page
  18. Ulijn, J.M. (1984). ‘Reading for professional purposes: psycholinguistic evidence in a cross-linguistic perspective’, in Pugh, A.K. and Ulijn, J.M. (eds), Reading for Professional Purposes. London: Heinemann, pp. 66–81.
  19. West, M.P. (1941). Learning to Read in a Foreign Language. London: Longman (quoted in Nation and Coady, 1987).

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Metadata

Authors
Laufer, B.
Venue
Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics
Published
1992
Pages
126-132
OpenAlex
W20138697
Cited by
518
References
0
FWCI
0.83
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
closed

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Laufer, B. (1992). How Much Lexis is Necessary for Reading Comprehension? Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12396-4_12

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