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Applied Linguistics 1995 16(1):15-34; doi:10.1093/applin/16.1.15
© 1995 by Oxford University Press
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Interpreting Relationships between L1 and L2 Reading: Consolidating the Linguistic Threshold and the Linguistic Interdependence Hypotheses

ELIZABETH B BERNHARDT and MICHAEL L KAMIL

The Ohio State University

This paper reinterprets the question of whether second language reading is a language problem (linguistic threshold) or a reading problem (linguistic interdependence) A variety of previously published data sources relevant to these questions are examined and new data are presented from 186 adult native English speakers reading in English and Spanish Results indicated that neither hypothesis is wholly reflective of the second language reading process There is considerable consistency (in all studies reviewed) in the amount of variance accounted for by first language literacy (upwards of 20 per cent) However, linguistic knowledge is consistently a more powerful predictor (upwards of 30 per cent) The paper concludes with a restatement of the second language reading problematic How L1 literate does a second language reader have to be to make the second language knowledge work ? How much second language knowledge does a second language reader have to have in order to make the L1 literacy knowledge work ?


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