THE ROLE OF LEXICAL COHESION IN L2 READING COMPREHENSION

The main claim in this book is that, in multiple choice reading comprehension tests in English as a foreign language (e.g. TOEFL), there are always lexical links that connect the texts with correct options and the question stems. Moreover, considering that sentences central to the topic of a text are likely to contain a larger number of lexical links, awareness of lexical connections that contribute to the cohesiveness of the text should help students recognize the links between the concepts and identify important information in the text. From these findings, it was hypothesized by the researcher that awareness of these lexical cohesive links should significantly increase a reader's reading comprehension test performance. A more cohesive representation of a text is expected to make discourse comprehension easier for readers, enabling them to redirect their attention resources to unfamiliar words in the text, which again should promote effective reading ability and vocabulary development. So, identifying the lexical cohesive links in the text may facilitate not only accurate comprehension of a text, but also learning of lexical items reiterated by the author.... Mehr