Reading in a foreign language: how does L2 lexical knowledge interact with the reader's general academic ability'

ABSTRACT Reading in a foreign language is believed to be both a reading problem and an L2 problem. It is still unclear, however, how the two factors interact in determining the reading results in L2. The study investigates how L2 reading is affected by L2 proficiency as reflected in the learners’ lexical level on the one hand and by hidher general academic ability (including the reading ability in Ll) on the other hand. Sixty four EFL learners took part in the study. For each subject, three scores were compared: vocabulary size in L2, general academic ability, and L2 reading. The results show that 1, with vocabulary size of fewer than 3000 word families (5000 lexical items), no amount of general ability will make the learner read well; 2, with vocabulary size of 5000 word families (8000 lexical items), reading in L2 will be satisfactory whatever the general ability; 3, with vocabulary size of 3000–4000 word families (about 5000–6500 lexical items), L2 reading may or may not be influenced by general ability. Practical implications of the results are suggested.