Discourse competence as a reading skill: The role of coherence in second language discourse comprehension

Discourse comprehension is by and large neglected among the language skills taught in college curricula and its function during reading many times ignored when we explore students' way to find meaning in texts. This topic goes hand in hand with questions surrounding second language course content where we largely concentrate on communicative and linguistic skills and often limit extended text work and literature to a minimum. This circumstance leaves students by and large unprepared for reading at a higher level and their capacity to establish coherence in more advanced contexts is often underdeveloped when they leave the initial stage of language acquisition. This project explores the role of discourse in the reading process and describes the most elaborate approaches available in the field. I pursue the understanding that reading is an interactive process involving surface language as well as world knowledge and cognitive memory capacity.; The attempt to establish a model for coherent discourse comprehension constitutes the methodological part of the project. The model is based on the Construction Integration Model as it was established by Walter Kintsch in first language discourse processing. The model is based on the idea that readers sort and suppress text elements continuously involving surface level language as well as knowledge of the world. The stronger the competence to evaluate text content, the stronger their competence will be in forming a coherent body of meaning throughout a text. Second language students will naturally be limited in their effort to sort and suppress text content and are therefore relying on strategies offered to them during the acquisition process.; Methodologically, the project aims at expanding strategies used in second language reading comprehension which can enhance students' ability to establish discourse during the reading process.