Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 13, 1 (2011); pp. 27−40 The Effect of Topic Familiarity and Pre-Reading Activities on Reading Comprehension and Lexical Inferencing Afsar Rouhi Payame Noor University Fatemeh Asghari Islamic Azad University Ardabil Branch Abstract The present study investigated the effect of topic familiarity and pre-reading activities on reading comprehension and lexical inferencing. Sixty four Azari learners of English, with comparable English proficiency, were assigned to four groups: (1) plus familiar topic, plus pre-reading group (+F+P); (2) plus familiar topic, minus pre-reading group (+F–P); (3) minus familiar topic, plus pre-reading group (–F+P); (4) minus familiar topic, minus pre-reading group (–F–P). The participating groups were provided with reading materials which met the experimental conditions to which they had already been assigned, and were tested on reading comprehension and lexical inferencing. Results of MANOVA tests and pairwise comparisons run on the data obtained from two comprehension tests and one lexical inferencing test revealed a significantly positive effect of topic familiarity on both EFL readers’ comprehension and lexical inferencing. Pre-reading activities, however, improved neither reading comprehension nor lexical inferencing. The statistically significant superiority of +F–P group over the –F+P group in terms of both reading comprehension and lexical inferencing tests further implied that providing readers with pre-reading activities on an unfamiliar topic could barely make up for the lack of topic familiarity in either reading comprehension or lexical inferencing. Keywords: reading comprehension, topic familiarity, pre-reading task, lexical inferencing Introduction The primary goal of reading is to obtain information from a text, no matter whether it is to look for some specific information, to learn something new from texts, or just to gain general comprehension (Grabe & Stoller, 2002). As conceptualised by Pulido (2007), “comprehension involves constructing a mental representation from propositional content for the purpose of understanding a message, be it written or aural” (p. 167). Research on second language (L2) reading has demonstrated that learners can also gain some further understanding about the language through which information is encoded. For example, while reading a text for meaning, L2 readers can learn new words they encounter (e.g., Pulido, 2003; Rott, 1999), improve their knowledge of partially known grammatical forms and structures (Leow, 1997), and process brand new grammatical forms (Lee, 2002; Lesser, 2004). Reading has also been taken to be a dynamic process in that reader variables including background knowledge, aptitude, and memory constraints come to interact with text variables (e.g., text structure, length, and lexical and linguistic complexity) as a reader gets involved in constructing a mental representation or comprehending a