diff --git a/packages/http/src/body.ts b/packages/http/src/body.ts
index 053a7e9475..4b091fb5b9 100644
--- a/packages/http/src/body.ts
+++ b/packages/http/src/body.ts
@@ -37,14 +37,32 @@ export abstract class Body {
 
   /**
    * Returns the body as a string, presuming `toString()` can be called on the response body.
+   *
+   * When decoding an `ArrayBuffer`, the optional `encodingHint` parameter determines how the
+   * bytes in the buffer will be interpreted. Valid values are:
+   *
+   * - `legacy` - incorrectly interpret the bytes as UTF-16 (technically, UCS-2). Only characters
+   *   in the Basic Multilingual Plane are supported, surrogate pairs are not handled correctly.
+   *   In addition, the endianness of the 16-bit octet pairs in the `ArrayBuffer` is not taken
+   *   into consideration. This is the default behavior to avoid breaking apps, but should be
+   *   considered deprecated.
+   *
+   * - `iso-8859` - interpret the bytes as ISO-8859 (which can be used for ASCII encoded text).
    */
-  text(): string {
+  text(encodingHint: 'legacy'|'iso-8859' = 'legacy'): string {
     if (this._body instanceof URLSearchParams) {
       return this._body.toString();
     }
 
     if (this._body instanceof ArrayBuffer) {
-      return String.fromCharCode.apply(null, new Uint16Array(<ArrayBuffer>this._body));
+      switch (encodingHint) {
+        case 'legacy':
+          return String.fromCharCode.apply(null, new Uint16Array(this._body as ArrayBuffer));
+        case 'iso-8859':
+          return String.fromCharCode.apply(null, new Uint8Array(this._body as ArrayBuffer));
+        default:
+          throw new Error(`Invalid value for encodingHint: ${encodingHint}`);
+      }
     }
 
     if (this._body == null) {
diff --git a/packages/http/src/http_utils.ts b/packages/http/src/http_utils.ts
index a03f52d2f0..694d40eebd 100644
--- a/packages/http/src/http_utils.ts
+++ b/packages/http/src/http_utils.ts
@@ -42,6 +42,15 @@ export function getResponseURL(xhr: any): string|null {
   return null;
 }
 
+export function stringToArrayBuffer8(input: String): ArrayBuffer {
+  const view = new Uint8Array(input.length);
+  for (let i = 0, strLen = input.length; i < strLen; i++) {
+    view[i] = input.charCodeAt(i);
+  }
+  return view.buffer;
+}
+
+
 export function stringToArrayBuffer(input: String): ArrayBuffer {
   const view = new Uint16Array(input.length);
   for (let i = 0, strLen = input.length; i < strLen; i++) {
diff --git a/packages/http/src/static_request.ts b/packages/http/src/static_request.ts
index fb48126e1a..7005bb4cb0 100644
--- a/packages/http/src/static_request.ts
+++ b/packages/http/src/static_request.ts
@@ -186,4 +186,5 @@ const noop = function() {};
 const w = typeof window == 'object' ? window : noop;
 const FormData = (w as any /** TODO #9100 */)['FormData'] || noop;
 const Blob = (w as any /** TODO #9100 */)['Blob'] || noop;
-export const ArrayBuffer = (w as any /** TODO #9100 */)['ArrayBuffer'] || noop;
+export const ArrayBuffer: ArrayBufferConstructor =
+    (w as any /** TODO #9100 */)['ArrayBuffer'] || noop;
diff --git a/packages/http/test/static_request_spec.ts b/packages/http/test/static_request_spec.ts
index c95dfb527f..79878966da 100644
--- a/packages/http/test/static_request_spec.ts
+++ b/packages/http/test/static_request_spec.ts
@@ -7,10 +7,12 @@
  */
 
 import {describe, expect, it} from '@angular/core/testing/src/testing_internal';
+import {ɵgetDOM as getDOM} from '@angular/platform-browser';
 
 import {RequestOptions} from '../src/base_request_options';
 import {ContentType} from '../src/enums';
 import {Headers} from '../src/headers';
+import {stringToArrayBuffer, stringToArrayBuffer8} from '../src/http_utils';
 import {ArrayBuffer, Request} from '../src/static_request';
 
 export function main() {
@@ -118,6 +120,19 @@ export function main() {
     it('should use search if present', () => {
       const req = new Request({url: 'http://test.com', search: 'a=1&b=2'});
       expect(req.url).toBe('http://test.com?a=1&b=2');
-    })
+    });
+
+    if (getDOM().supportsWebAnimation()) {
+      it('should serialize an ArrayBuffer to string via legacy encoding', () => {
+        const str = '\u89d2\u5ea6';
+        expect(new Request({body: stringToArrayBuffer(str), url: '/'}).text()).toEqual(str);
+      });
+
+      it('should serialize an ArrayBuffer to string via iso-8859 encoding', () => {
+        const str = 'abcd';
+        expect(new Request({body: stringToArrayBuffer8(str), url: '/'}).text('iso-8859'))
+            .toEqual(str);
+      });
+    }
   });
 }