A Study On The Role Of Context In L2 Reading

The previous studies that have examined the role of context in language use have fully justified the utilization of context in reading. However, when English as a second language is concerned in the present study, one can't help asking whether context still works so wonder for L2 readers in their real reading. The present study mainly addresses the following questions: Do context-related reading strategies result in better comprehension of L2 text? Does a contextual clue result in better comprehension of words as well as in better retention of the words? The participants are 87 Chinese Grade-two university students who major in English language. The data came from a questionnaire and 4 tests, one extensive reading test, one vocabulary comprehension test and two memory tests. The results indicate that context is not used as frequently as expected in students' decoding English texts while contextualization or context-awareness does enhance vocabulary comprehension efficiency and contextual clues do result in better retention of the words. Implications of these findings for language teaching as well as the limitations of the study are discussed.