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Alternating-color words facilitate reading and eye movements among second-language learners of Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2020

Wei Zhou Open the ORCID record for Wei Zhou [Opens in a new window] ,
Wanwen Ye  and
Ming Yan Open the ORCID record for Ming Yan [Opens in a new window]
Wei Zhou
Affiliation:
Capital Normal University, Beijing
Wanwen Ye
Affiliation:
Capital Normal University, Beijing
Ming Yan*
Affiliation:
University of Macau, Taipa
*
*Corresponding author. Room 3055, E21B Humanities and Social Sciences Building Avenida da Universidade, Taipa, Macau. Email: mingyan@um.edu.mo
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Abstract

The present study investigated whether word-boundary information, provided by alternating colors (consistent or inconsistent with word-boundary information) in a Chinese sentence would facilitate the reading of second-language (L2) learners. Thirty-three Korean students were recruited in the eye-movement experiment. Relative to a baseline (i.e., mono-colors) condition, incorrect word segmentation produced closer fixation location toward the beginning of words, longer fixation duration, higher refixation rate, and slower reading speed. In contrast, word segmentation with alternating colors produced further fixation location toward the center of words, shorter fixation duration, lower refixation rate, and faster reading speed. These results indicate that L2 readers are capable of making use of word-boundary knowledge for saccade generation, which can result in a facilitation of reading efficiency.

Keywords

Chinese readingsecond-language learnerword segmentationfixation location
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , May 2020 , pp. 685 - 699
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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