An Eye-movement Study On The Semantic Access Of The Visual Words In The Second Language Of Chinese English Learners In Reading And Translation Tasks:a New Approach To Semantic Access

The present study examined the semantic access modes of the visual words in the second language of Chinese English learners in reading and translation tasks through eye-movement experiments with the measurement of gaze duration.The reading eye-movement experiment showed that word meaning was accessed through the orthography-meaning route directly when English proficiency was low,while it was competitively accessed through the orthographic route or the phonological route when English proficiency developed to a certain level.The semantic access mode of foreign language learners was different from that of native language learners.The present study demonstrated that the way of language learning influenced the structure of language representation and resulted in the difference of semantic access modes.The cognitive pressure in translation task is larger than that in reading.This study additionally explored the dynamic changes of the semantic access mode under certain cognitive pressure.A comprehensive comparison was made between the dynamic changes of the semantic access modes during reading and translation.The result showed that cognitive pressure changed the semantic access modes.During reading,word meaning was accessed through the orthography-meaning route for those subjects with low English proficiency,while it was competitively accessed through the orthographic route or the phonological route for those with high English proficiency.However,word meaning was accessed only through the orthography-meaning route during translation regardless of the subjects' language proficiency.The study revealed that the orthography-phonology-meaning connection in the language representation of the foreign language learners was fragile and the subjects accessed the word meaning through the more stable orthography-meaning connection.Nevertheless,when translation experience was taken into consideration as a factor,the result showed that translation experience had a significant impact on the semantic access mode.A comparison was made between the subjects who have systematically received professional translation training and those who haven't received.The result showed that word meaning was competitively accessed through the orthographic route or the phonological route for those subjects with high translation experience,while it was accessed through the orthography-meaning route directly for those with low translation experience.The results all together suggested that even if the subjects' language proficiency was similar,the difference in their translation experience would cause the difference of the access mode.From the objective perspective of cognitive processing,word familiarity was a more stable factor to influence semantic access during reading and translation.Words with low familiarity were competitively accessed through the orthographic route or the phonological route,while those with high familiarity were accessed through the orthography-meaning route.The result indicated that word familiarity could influence word meaning access independently.More specifically,word familiarity reflects the quality of word representation.Once the connection between orthography and meaning in language representation has become internalized(high word familiarity),the direct access route to meaning is stable and effective,without interference of the subjective factors.The present study explored the semantic access of English visual words from a new perspective.It reveals that the semantic access mode is not only influenced by the way of language learning but also influenced by cognitive pressure and the processing experience.The findings may extend our understanding of the classic semantic access theory and help to explore the regular pattern of language representation construction in foreign language learners.