Monitoring of Reading Comprehension Across the First, Second, and Third Language: Domain-General or Language-Specific?

Razan Silawi; Yasmin Shalhoub-Awwad; Anat Prior

doi:10.1111/lang.12410

Monitoring of Reading Comprehension Across the First, Second, and Third Language: Domain-General or Language-Specific?

Razan Silawi, Yasmin Shalhoub-Awwad, Anat Prior

Department of Learning Disabilities

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This study examined the monitoring abilities of trilinguals in reading comprehension, addressing the following questions: Is comprehension monitoring related to reading comprehension across first, second, and third languages? Is comprehension monitoring shared across the languages of trilingual adults (domain-general) or rather linked to language proficiency (language-specific)? Eighty undergraduates, trilingual in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, read three texts in each language, answered multiple-choice questions, and rated their confidence in their responses. From this we derived the absolute and relative accuracy of monitoring. The results showed links between accurate monitoring and successful comprehension in all the languages of participants, but these were weaker in English, the least proficient language. Further, the results lend some support to the involvement of both domain-general and language-specific processes in comprehension monitoring. Specifically, monitoring seems to be utilized similarly by individuals to support comprehension across the first and second languages, but is less well generalized to the third language.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	886-922
Number of pages	37
Journal	Language Learning
Volume	70
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12410
State	Published - 1 Sep 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by grant number 1094/14 from the Israeli Science Foundation to AP, by a research grant from the Arabic Language Academy to AP and YSA, and by the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities. RS was supported by the Otto Werner Excellence Scholarship from The Jewish‐Arab Center at the University of Haifa. The authors wish to thank Dr Nachshon Korem for assistance in data analyses, and five anonymous reviewers for comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

Keywords

bilingual
calibration
comprehension monitoring
domain-general
foreign language
multilingual
reading comprehension
second language
third language

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education
Language and Linguistics
Linguistics and Language

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1111/lang.12410

Cite this

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title = "Monitoring of Reading Comprehension Across the First, Second, and Third Language: Domain-General or Language-Specific?",

abstract = "This study examined the monitoring abilities of trilinguals in reading comprehension, addressing the following questions: Is comprehension monitoring related to reading comprehension across first, second, and third languages? Is comprehension monitoring shared across the languages of trilingual adults (domain-general) or rather linked to language proficiency (language-specific)? Eighty undergraduates, trilingual in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, read three texts in each language, answered multiple-choice questions, and rated their confidence in their responses. From this we derived the absolute and relative accuracy of monitoring. The results showed links between accurate monitoring and successful comprehension in all the languages of participants, but these were weaker in English, the least proficient language. Further, the results lend some support to the involvement of both domain-general and language-specific processes in comprehension monitoring. Specifically, monitoring seems to be utilized similarly by individuals to support comprehension across the first and second languages, but is less well generalized to the third language.",

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N1 - Funding Information: This study was supported by grant number 1094/14 from the Israeli Science Foundation to AP, by a research grant from the Arabic Language Academy to AP and YSA, and by the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities. RS was supported by the Otto Werner Excellence Scholarship from The Jewish‐Arab Center at the University of Haifa. The authors wish to thank Dr Nachshon Korem for assistance in data analyses, and five anonymous reviewers for comments on a previous version of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

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N2 - This study examined the monitoring abilities of trilinguals in reading comprehension, addressing the following questions: Is comprehension monitoring related to reading comprehension across first, second, and third languages? Is comprehension monitoring shared across the languages of trilingual adults (domain-general) or rather linked to language proficiency (language-specific)? Eighty undergraduates, trilingual in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, read three texts in each language, answered multiple-choice questions, and rated their confidence in their responses. From this we derived the absolute and relative accuracy of monitoring. The results showed links between accurate monitoring and successful comprehension in all the languages of participants, but these were weaker in English, the least proficient language. Further, the results lend some support to the involvement of both domain-general and language-specific processes in comprehension monitoring. Specifically, monitoring seems to be utilized similarly by individuals to support comprehension across the first and second languages, but is less well generalized to the third language.

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Monitoring of Reading Comprehension Across the First, Second, and Third Language: Domain-General or Language-Specific?

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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