Text Difficulty,Working Memory Capacity and Mind Wandering During Chinese EFL Learners’Reading

This experimental study investigated how text difficulty and different working memory capacity(WMC)affected Chinese EFL learners’reading comprehension and their tendency to engage in task-unrelated thoughts,that is,mind wandering(MW),in the course of reading.Sixty first-year university non-English majors participated in the study.A two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(text difficulty:difficult and simple)×2(WMC:high/large and low/small)was employed.Results revealed that 1)the main and interaction effects of WMC and text difficulty on voluntary MW were significant,whereas those on involuntary MW were not;2)while reading the easy texts,the involuntary MW of high-WMC individuals was less frequent than that of low-WMC ones,whereas while reading the difficult ones,the direct relationship between WMC and involuntary MW was not found;and that 3)high-WMC individuals had a lower overall rate of MW and better reading performance than low-WMC individuals did,but with increasing text difficulty,their rates of overall MW and voluntary MW were getting higher and higher,and the reading performance was getting lower and lower.These results lend support to WM theory and have pedagogical implications for the instruction of L2 reading.

“NP_([L])+V+着+NP”格式乙类结构歧义产生的原因和机制探析

“NP_([L])+V+着+NP”格式一直是学界关注的热点,有学者将其分化为“静态”A式和“动态”B式,并指出A式、B式对立的原因,让人们认识到了“NP_([L])+V+着+NP”格式实际上是一个歧义格式。然而,该格式歧义产生的原因和机制并未受到关注和研究,前期学者只从结果的角度提出“重合说”来解释歧义的产生:当A式、B式重合时产生歧义。其实,从过程的角度揭示该格式歧义的原因和机制,才更有解释力。根据歧义产生的情况,“NP_([L])+V+着+NP”格式可以分成甲、乙、丙三类,只有乙类结构有歧义的可能。乙类结构产生歧义的原因和机制在于:乙类结构动词“动作进行”义、“状态持续”义的内在共生性以及此二义都被“容主性”NP_([L])激活,前者是歧义产生的内在基础,后者是歧义实现的关键。动词的“动作进行”义浮现生成了结构的“动态进行”义,动词的“状态持续”义浮现生成了结构的“静态存在”义。