The Experimental Study On Reading Effects Of Word Segmentation To Chinese As A Second Language Learners At Advanced Stage

The Chinese written texts do not have word boundaries.If the texts are marked with word boundaries,will the Chinese as a second language learners be affected by this form? To find the answers,the researcher takes a group of advanced stage learners as subjects,which is designed by a three-part experiment through quantitative methods.The experiment focuses on the effects of word boundaries when the subjects read Chinese sentences and texts.Experiment ? is conducted by 2×2×2 within-subjects ANOVA(analysis of variance)with word boundaries,the length of sentences and the difficulty of sentences as the independent variables,and sentences' reading reaction time as the dependent variable.The results indicate that there are significant main effects for word boundaries,the length of sentences and the difficulty of sentences.But the interaction among the three independent variables is not significant.Experiment ? is conducted by single factor within-subjects ANOVA with the possible number of word combination as the independent variable,and the incorrect number of the ambiguities of words segmentation which are made by the subjects as the dependent variable.The results indicate that there is significant main effect for the possible number of word combination.Experiment ? is conducted by 2×2 within-subjects ANOVA with word boundaries and the length of texts as the independent variable,and the incorrect number of texts' answers which are made by the subjects as the dependent variable.The results indicate that there are not significant main effects for the two independent variables,and so are the interaction between the two independent variables.According to the results of the three experiments,the paper constructs a reading model for the learners named ITARO(input-transform-adjust-codes recombine-output model).Moreover,the paper points out some vocabulary teaching strategies for the Chinese as a second language learners who at advanced stage,which include the combination of Chinese characters and words,the concern about proper nouns and idioms,the connection with register,the importance on the rule of combination,and the consideration for semantic and context.