| This study aimed to investigate the interaction between L2 readers and an electronic text equipped with hypermedia vocabulary glosses. Twelve non-Thai students, six low-proficiency and six high-proficiency L2 readers, who were enrolled in intermediate and advanced-level Thai courses at two midwestern universities in the United States participated in the study. The text was an excerpt from a short story that was redesigned in an electronic format, in which 42 vocabulary items were annotated with four types of glosses: English (L1) meaning, Thai (L2) meaning, sound, and image.; Concurrent think-aloud protocol, computerized log files, and retrospective interviews were used to collect the data. The results revealed that both low-proficiency and high-proficiency L2 readers looked up the L1 gloss most frequently. Furthermore, low-proficiency L2 readers looked up image and sound glosses more frequently than did high-proficiency L2 readers, whereas high-proficiency L2 readers looked up the L2 gloss more frequently than did low-proficiency L2 readers. Additionally, L2 readers adopted individual patterns of gloss lookups. Low-proficiency L2 readers tended to look up more than one gloss type, while high-proficiency tended to look up only one type. L2 readers attempted various strategies to understand the meaning of unknown words before looking up glosses. Both groups used the L1 gloss as an immediate provision of meaning and a confirmation of word inferences and used L2, sound, and image glosses as clues for word inferences. When reading a hypermedia narrative text, L2 readers utilized local strategies more frequently than global strategies. L2 proficiency levels, however, seem to be an important variable for their use of reading strategies. The higher the proficiency, the more frequently they would use global strategies.; Educational implications suggest that provision of hypermedia glosses may be beneficial for L2 students; however, they need some scaffolding for utilizing glosses in a beneficial way. Research suggestions include the investigation of L2 readers' use of the narration option and other gloss types as well as the utilization of hypermedia glosses by beginners and younger readers. |
