This book presents a comprehensive review of previous research on lexical inferencing, co-authored by Kirsten Haastrup, and a major new trilingual study of lexical inferencing by both first (L1) and second language (L2) readers. Research since the 1970s on this apparently universal cognitive process in L2 reading and vocabulary learning is surveyed, including the kinds of knowledge and textual cues L2 readers use when inferring unknown word meanings, factors influencing their success and knowledge retention, and relevant theory. A comparative study of L1 and L2 lexical inferencing by...