Inference making ability and the function of inferences in reading comprehension

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explain the relation between reading comprehension and inference. The main target of reading process is to create a coherent mental representation of the text, therefore it is necessary to recognize relations between different parts of the texts and to relate them to one another. During reading process, to complete the missing information in the text or to add new information is necessary. All these processes require inference making ability beyond the information in the text. When the readers use such active reading strategies as monitoring the comprehension, prediction, inferring and background knowledge, they learn a lot more from the text and understand it better. In reading comprehension, making inference is a constructive thinking process, because it is a cognitive process in order to form the meaning. When reading comprehension models are considered, it can be easily seen that linguistics elements cannot explain these processes by themselves, therefore the ability of thinking and inference making is needed. During reading process, general world knowledge is necessary to form coherent relations between sentences. Information which comes from context of the text will not be adequate to understand the text. In order to overcome this deficiency and to integrate the meanings from different sentences witch each other, it is necessary to make inference. Readers make inference in order to completely understand what the writer means, to interpret the sentences and also to form the combinations and relations between them.