词切分对印-英双语者阅读影响的眼动研究

Effects of Word Segmentation on Hindi-English Bilinguals' Reading:Evidence from Eye Movements

以25名印-英双语者为被试,采用EyeLink2000眼动仪,探讨词切分对印-英双语者阅读的影响。实验一要求被试阅读印地语句子,实验二要求被试阅读英语句子,词切分方式有三种:正常条件、无空格隔词加灰条件和无空格条件。结果发现:(1)对印-英双语者阅读自己的两种官方语言来说,空格因素在其阅读中发挥着积极作用,删除空格会明显影响他们的阅读;(2)在无空格隔词加灰条件和无空格条件下,印-英双语者的英语阅读速度的下降明显大于印地语阅读的速度下降,这表明空格因素的作用会受语言特点的制约。

India has two official languages： Hindi and English. They are both spaced alphabetic languages. Hindi is also the mother tongue. In the present study, we investigated the role of space information through two-official-language readers. We examined how word discriminability affected the pattern of eye movements in the course of reading unspaced text in two alphabetic languages. We carried out three conditions （ 1 ） the normally condition, （2） the alternating gray unspaced condition, （3） the unspaced condition. We, therefore, predict that （ 1 ） the unspaced text may have a greater interfering effect on Hindi and English reading, （2） the alternating gray unspaced condition is an obvious visual cue for readers during reading. To study the effect of word segmentation on Hindi-English bilinguals＇ reading, 25 Indian University students who were bilinguals of Hindi-English participated in the research, and their eye movements were recorded with an SR research EyeLink 2000 eyetracker. In Experiment 1, Hindi sentences were constructed with 3 types of spacing： （ 1 ） normally written sentences, （ 2 ） alternating gray unspaced sentences, （3） unspaced sentences. In Experiment 2, we used three types of sentences as in Experiment 1 to make three different types of English sentences to investigate the role of space information in English reading. The trends of data from two experiments were very similar. Global fixation counts and total reading time measures indicated that （ 1 ） The efficiency of Hindi reading under the normally written condition was better than the alternating gray unspaced condition and the unspaced condition; （2） The efficiency of English reading under the normally written condition was best, the alternating gray unspaced condition is better than the unspaced condition. The results of the present study suggest that spacing information plays an important role for both Hindi and English reading. Under the alternating gray unspaced condition and the unspaced condition, the speed of English reading slowed much more than that of Hindi reading. The role of spacing information is affected by language traits.