Proficiency Effects and Compensation in Advanced Second-Language Reading

Many, if not most, university courses within the Scandinavian countries use English language textbooks and articles to a greater or lesser extent, although lectures and seminar discussions may be in the L1 (Swedish, Danish, etc.). Scandinavian students generally use the same textbooks as their L1 English counterparts in Britain/US. Students in this position are especially interesting given that the number of L2 users of English in this position is steadily increasing around the world (Graddol 2006). It is often taken for granted that because Scandinavian students' spoken production and listening comprehension is genuinely advanced, then their reception of educational texts is likely to be at a level at least as advanced. This assumption is poorly founded (Cummins 1984), and their receptive proficiency is worth investigating for this reason alone. But rather less research has been carried out on such advanced users compared to research on beginner and intermediate levels of L2 readers (the focus often being on L2 acquisition/learning rather than L2 use) and there are several reasons why this group of L2 users is particularly interesting. For example: it is unclear what processing differences (as opposed to merely slower processing) may exist between L1 and advanced L2 groups, and insights here might inform us about potentially useful pedagogical intervention; and it is unclear what allows some intermediate readers to become advanced and what allows some advanced readers to become native-like (in reception, production, or both), while others, regardless of the length of time or intensity of their L2 use, do not move beyond the advanced-but-not-native-like level. This paper therefore focuses on the reading and comprehension skills of advanced L2 users, paying attention to both the quality of the comprehension 'product' (the mental model of text content constructed) and speed of processing. More specifically, it focuses on first-year biology students at Stockholm University and equivalent students at Reading and Edinburgh Universities in the UK. This is part of a larger study on the "advanced L2 user". Although it may not be immediately clear who or what this label refers to, for current purposes we assume that students of biology at Stockholm University, most of whom have had 9-10 years of English at primary, secondary and upper secondary school, are representative of the group. That is, advanced readers are L2 users of English who have reached a level of pro