ABSTRACT
Departing from a sociocultural approach of literacy, the question is what psycholinguistic abilities underlie a functional literacy level in the individual. By incorporating the sociolinguistic concept of communicative competence (cf. Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1971), we can arrive at a more elaborated con-
in a certain language is effective in promoting proficiency in that language, transfer of this proficiency to another language will occur, provided there is adequate exposure to that other language (either in the school or environment) and adequate motivation to learn that language" (p. 87). The hypothesis not only predicts transfer from LI to L2, but also from L2 to LI, unless the exposure and motivation conditions are negative.
