抄録
Successful reading requires main idea comprehension by macrorules: selection (distinguishing explicit main ideas from explicit details), generalization, and construction (integrating subordinate words or propositions into an implicit superordinate one). Although past studies used a summary task to elicit readers’ macrorule use, readers might not use the rules without such a task. This study examined L2 readers’ macrorule use adapting a sentence recognition task, which reflects main idea activation by the macrorules. After 73 Japanese EFL university students read each paragraph of two texts, they judged whether the following probes were written in the paragraph: (a) explicit main ideas vs. (b) explicit details (to examine selection use), and (c) implicit main ideas vs. (d) thematically-related but undescribed ideas (to examine generalization and construction use). The participants recognized the explicit main ideas more correctly and quickly than the explicit details. Moreover, whereas they should have rejected the implicit main ideas as these were not explicitly described, they often recognized that the ideas were written in the paragraphs, compared to the thematically-related ideas, and needed longer time to suppress that information. These findings indicate the activation of the explicit and implicit main ideas and suggest that L2 readers could use macrorules without the summary task.
