Li Hui, Paterson Kevin B, Warrington Kayleigh L, Wang Xiaolu
School of International Studies, NingboTech University, Ningbo, China.
Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2022 Mar 30;13:845590. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.845590. eCollection 2022.
We report an eye movement experiment that investigates the effects of collocation strength and contextual predictability on the reading of collocative phrases by L2 English readers. Thirty-eight Chinese English as foreign language learners (EFL) read 40 sentences, each including a specific two-word phrase that was either a strong (e.g., ) or weak (e.g., ) adjective-noun collocation and was either highly predictable or unpredictable from the previous sentence context. Eye movement measures showed that L2 reading times for the collocative phrases were sensitive to both collocation strength and contextual predictability. However, an interaction effect between these factors, which appeared relatively late in the eye movement record, additionally revealed that contextual predictability more strongly influenced time spent reading weak compared with strong collocations. This was most likely because the greater familiarity of strong collocations facilitated their integration, even in the absence of strong contextual constraint. We discuss the findings in terms of the value of collocations in second language learning.
我们报告了一项眼动实验，该实验研究了搭配强度和语境可预测性对以英语为第二语言的读者阅读搭配短语的影响。38名中国英语学习者（EFL）阅读了40个句子，每个句子都包含一个特定的双词短语，该短语要么是强搭配（例如……），要么是弱搭配（例如……），即形容词 - 名词搭配，并且要么在前一句语境中具有高度可预测性，要么不可预测。眼动测量结果表明，搭配短语的第二语言阅读时间对搭配强度和语境可预测性都很敏感。然而，这些因素之间的交互作用在眼动记录中出现得相对较晚，此外还表明，与强搭配相比，语境可预测性对阅读弱搭配所花费的时间影响更大。这很可能是因为即使在没有强烈语境约束的情况下，强搭配的更高熟悉度也有助于它们的整合。我们从搭配在第二语言学习中的价值方面讨论了这些发现。
