The Boundary Effect And The Function Of The Temporal And The Spatial Segmentation Markers In Chinese Text Reading For Foreign Students

Many psychologists have discovered that during the text reading,it exists the boundary effect which refers to the phenomenon of the reading time for the topic shift condition longer than the reading time for the topic continuous condition,and the temporal segmentation marker can reduce the boundary effect.Based on those studies,we study these two questions through experiments.First,Do boundary effects exist when the foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels are reading? Second,if there are boundary effects,can the temporal segmentation marker and the spatial segmentation marker reduce the boundary effect?In order to look for the answers to the two questions,we design two experiments. Experiment 1 examines whether the boundary effect could be observed in Chinese text reading for foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels.A 2(middle level/high level)×2 (topic continuous/ topic shift) design is used,and the reading time for target sentences is recorded.Experiment 2 examines whether the temporal segmentation marker and the spatial segmentation marker can reduce the boundary effect in Chinese text reading for foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels.A 2(middle level/ high level)×3(unmarked/ the temporal marker/the spatial marker) design is used,and the reading time for target sentences is recorded.The result of Experiment 1 shows that the boundary effect is observed in Chinese text reading for foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels.The result of Experiment 2 shows that the temporal marker and the spatial marker can not reduce the boundary effect in Chinese text reading for foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels.The results of our studies imply that boundary effects exist in Chinese text reading for foreign students of different Chinese proficiency levels;however the temporal segmentation marker and the spatial segmentation marker do not seem to reduce the boundary effect.