The Cambridge Introduction to Applied Linguistics

As a process of text-meaning construction, reading entails retrieving the meaning of a word from its graphic form. To do so, the reader must identify the word based on its phonological and morphological information that are encoded in a sequence of graphic symbols that encodes the word. As such, a reader must constantly connect text information with his/her knowledge – be it linguistic or conceptual – stored in memory. In second language (L2) reading, text meanings are constructed by connecting text information in the L2 with stored knowledge of the learner in the first language (L1). Text-meaning construction in L2 reading involves two languages and is jointly constrained by L2 linguistic knowledge and an assortment of L1 resources available to the learner at a given point in time.