A Study Of The Effects Of Narrative Time Shifts On L2 Learners' Reading Comprehension Processes

Readers'cognitive processing of information during text comprehension has always been an important research focus in the field of psycholinguistics both at home and abroad. It is generally assumed that during narrative reading comprehension, readers conduct mental representations of at least five dimensions of an event, that is, time, space, protagonist, causality and intentionality. However, very few studies have focused on temporal dimension, which is in stark contrast to the importance and ubiquity of temporal information in language. So far, no research has specifically examined what role temporal information plays on readers'text comprehension processes in either ESL or EFL context in the field of linguistics. In view of this, the present study is conducted with its focus on the effects of narrative time shifts on L2 learners'text comprehension processes?the memory retrieval process of the Chinese EFL learners, specifically. On the basis of the extant theories and empirical evidence concerning the reading comprehension, the author assumes that 1) narrative time shifts will reduce L2 learners'retrieval accuracy for prior information during text comprehension; 2) narrative time shifts will decrease L2 learners'retrieval speed for prior information.In order to test these hypotheses, two reinforcing and mutually complementary experiments are designed to examine the effects of narrative time shifts on L2 learners'memory retrieval accuracy and speed respectively. The experiments are implemented among third-year English major college students at Ningbo University. More specifically, Experiment 1 is concerned with L2 learners'memory accuracy in recognizing the critical probe words following the narrative time shifts, by using an explicit recognition paradigm and moving windows technique. The results demonstrate that when a time shift is encountered during L2 narrative text reading, readers are less able to accurately retrieve prior information from memory. Experiment 2 focuses on L2 learners'memory retrieval speed, with which they read the sentences containing anaphoric references to prior information in on-going discourses, by using a continuous reading time paradigm and moving windows technique. The results indicate that L2 readers are slower to retrieve prior information from memory when encountering a time shift during L2 narrative text reading. On the whole, the results of the two experiments are consistent with the findings in L1 reading research and they help to test the universality of the strong iconicity assumption and event-indexing model. The results of the present study contribute theoretically and methodologically to the field of L2 reading research, and pedagogically to the field of English language teaching in China. Theoretically, this study yields insight into the nature of the effects of narrative time shifts on L2 reading processes. The results can not only expand the current theories concerning text comprehension processing but also can provide reference for future L2 reading research, which in turn helps to establish universal theories for text comprehension and language comprehension. Methodologically, the present investigation employs reading time method and probe recognition technique, the on-line measurements which are widely used in L1 text comprehension research, to investigate L2 text comprehension processing. Thus, it expands the research methods with L2 reading research. Pedagogically, this investigation has important implications for SLA and EFL as it suggests that emphases should be laid on studying the processes of comprehension as they occur.