A Correlational Study Between Word Segmentation And Reading Ability Of CFL Learners At Intermediate And Advanced Stages In Non-target Language Environment

One of the major differences between Chinese character writing system and other alphabetic writing systems is that there is no obvious space between words in Chinese characters.Therefore,CFL learners often encounter the problem of word segmentation while reading.In this study,the psychological experiment software Superlab was used to compile a program,conducting a 2(Chinese learners’ learning stage: intermediate or advanced)X2(difficulty of word segmentation: high or low)within-subject experiment design.By collecting the data of vocabulary,reading comprehension accuracy,duration of reading,written and spoken word segmentation errors of learners in non-target language environment,the correlation between word segmentation performance and reading ability is analyzed.The results showed that:CFL learners’ word segmentation performance is significantly correlated with their reading ability.The correlation of learners at intermediate stage and control group texts is stronger.The learning stage,the difficulty of word segmentation and their interaction all have an impact on learners’ word segmentation performance and reading comprehension accuracy.Learners at advanced stage have better reading comprehension scores and word segmentation performance in the texts with high difficulty of word segmentation.The difficulty of word segmentation has a greater effect on learners at intermediate stages.This study pioneers in exploring the correlation between word segmentation performance and reading ability of CFL learners in non-target language environment directly by experimental method,thus filling in this empirical gap.It also examines the rationality of classification in learning stages by testing learners’ vocabulary levels.Combining with the actual word segmentation performance,this study supplements individual factors such as learning stage(vocabulary reserve),vocabulary familiarity and cultural background knowledge reserve in the existing model,and preliminarily constructs the word segmentation and recognition model for CFL learners at intermediate and advanced stages.