ERIC Number: EJ876717
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-May
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0141-0423
EISSN: N/A
Syntactic Boundaries and Comma Placement during Silent Reading of Chinese Text: Evidence from Eye Movements
Ren, Gui-Qin; Yang, Yufang
Journal of Research in Reading, v33 n2 p168-177 May 2010
In an eye-tracking experiment, we investigated whether and how a comma influences the reading of Chinese sentences comprised of different types of syntactic constituent such as word, phrase and clause. Participants read Chinese sentences that did or did not insert a comma at the end of a syntactic constituent. The results showed that the fixation times were shorter for the target word followed by a comma than for that followed by no comma, which suggests that a comma facilitated word identification during the reading of Chinese sentences. Furthermore, the insertion of commas shortened the total fixation times in the post-target region only for the clause condition. The data are consistent with previous findings concerning the role of segmentation cues in reading, and compatible with the implicit prosody hypothesis.
Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Sentences, Cues, Silent Reading, Eye Movements, Punctuation, Human Body, Chinese, Reading Research, Evaluation Methods, Experiments, Reader Text Relationship
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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