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Effects of interword spacing on native English readers of Chinese as a second language
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Bassetti, Bene and Lu, Meihui (2016) Effects of interword spacing on native English readers of Chinese as a second language. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 54 (1). pp. 1-22. doi:10.1515/iral-2016-0014 ISSN 1613-4141.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/iral-2016-0014,
Abstract
Interword spacing facilitates English native readers but not native readers of Chinese, a writing system that does not mark word boundaries. L1-English readers of Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) could then be facilitated if spacing is added between words in Chinese materials. However, previous studies produced inconsistent results. This study tested the hypothesis that interword spacing facilitates L1-English CSL readers. We used an online multiple-choice gap-filling task to test 12 English CSL readers and 12 Chinese natives reading a series of eight texts of suitable difficulty, written with or without interword spacing. The CSL readers read faster with interword spacing than without, while Chinese native readers were not affected. The interword spacing effect was negatively correlated with measures of reading proficiency. It is argued that interword spacing facilitates CSL readers reading materials of sufficient difficulty by facilitating their lexical parsing. Pedagogical implications are discussed.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching | ||||||
| Publisher: | De Gruyter | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1613-4141 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 15 March 2016 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 54 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Number of Pages: | 19 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1-22 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1515/iral-2016-0014 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 14 March 2016 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 15 March 2017 | ||||||
| Funder: | Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC) | ||||||
| Grant number: | PTA/026/27/0610 |
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