Abstract:
High level academic attainment in the University mainly depends on the existing pre-entry attributes including the mastery of some fundamental language skills such as text processing. Text processing is a complex and meaningful socio-cultural, cognitive and linguistic process in which processors simultaneously use their socio-linguistic context to construct meaning with text. An indepth study of English as a second language (ESL) text processing must take into consideration socio-economic background variables that impact on students’ academic achievement in the university. This study looked at text processing proficiency from the sociology of language viewpoint. It started by describing the key concepts and sub-concepts of Sociology of Language and Text Processing. Five research questions were stated among them were to ascertain to what extent socio-economic background (SEB) of first year students in the University in Enugu State affect their text processing, to identify the SEB variables that affect their text processing and which of the variables exerts the greatest influence on text processing of these students. The research adopted survey design which is quantitative based. The population for this research consists of all the first year students in the four major universities in Enugu State. The sample size for the study comprised four hundred and ninety eight (498) students from the major universities in the study area. Primary data for the study were collected, using text passages selected from familiar and unfamiliar social contexts, using multiple-choice questions. Questionnaire was also used to obtain more general socio-economic data. The data were analysed using simple percentage and Z-test analysis. The work revealed that the level of parents’ education, income, home environment, language of the home, social class and attitudes were prevailing socio-economic variables that exerted very high influence on the first year students’ text processing in the selected universities in Enugu State. The study concluded that economic and social background of parents have important influences on students’ text processing. Families where the socio-economic background is positive socially, educationally and economically achieve higher level of text processing proficiency. It recommended that parents should equip their children with conducive and stimulating home environments that promote text processing before going into the university and even while in the university. Stakeholders in every university should create avenues to impact general analytical tools, discipline-specific values and strategies that help disciplinary text processing to help the students.
