Comprehension As Context: Toward Reconsideration Of A Transactional Theory Of Reading

Recent studies of comprehension as a cognitive process have focused on the development of models describing the inferred cognitive mechanisms and structures that provide for the proficient processing of connected discourse. A number of these studies (van Dijk, 1973; Kintsch, 1977; Meyer, 1975; Spiro, 1977) have suggested that a significant but underlying part of the text comprehension process is guided by social and contextual constraints.