ABSTRACT
Understanding Advanced Second-Language Reading now turns to the case of literary reading as an instance of upper-register text understanding. There are two specific reasons for this particular focus. The first is a pragmatic one, rooted in the second-language reading research data base itself. The very few studies that exist with second-language readers interacting with difficult, upperregister tests, indeed, concern the processing of literary text. The second reason is much more critical, yet elusive. Literary text demands of non-native readers that they engage foundational cultural and literary knowledge in order to understand-two knowledge sources that might only exist in an underdeveloped knowledge store. One dimension refers essentially to the Gestalt of a particular culture and is, consequently, extremely broad, vague, and uncodified; the other refers to procedural knowledge related to the interpretation of literature and is consequently particularlistic, narrow, and similarly uncodified. Each of these knowledge sources helps to drive the understanding of a literary text. These statements reiterate the arguments made in Reading Development in a Second Language for the unique status of literary texts in noting that “it is in literary texts that the implicit knowledge structures, and the unstated cultural heritage, that all learners need if they are to develop usable, authentic language skills are found” (p. 185).
