This book is about reading. It is useful to realize that reading has been widely studied and has held the interest of various disciplines, such as philosophy, psychology, education, artificial intelligences and linguistics (see Kusiak 2010b). Treated as an ability without which learners cannot develop their language competence, it has always been at the centre of first language and foreign language education. Within the field of applied linguistics, reading research is a little more than one hundred years old. The psycholinguistic perspective focuses on the cognitive processes of the reader during the reception of texts; whereas the socio-cultural view examines the social factors of text production and reception. Literary theories provide interesting insights into the role of author, text and reader in text interpretation; while linguistics enhances understanding of how language and discourse can be perceived. Over the years, the study of reading has focussed on both first (L1) and foreign/second language (FL/L2) reading. Initially in FL/L2 studies L1 constructs and research paradigms were applied; however, slowly it has become clear that FL/L2 reading should be treated as a separate language phenomenon. Cross-linguistic studies, which investigate the role of L1 and FL/L2 in FL/L2 reading and the nature of transfer between the languages, are quite recent.

In this work, reading is discussed and researched within a psycholinguistic orientation.