英文摘要 |
One of the most obvious characteristics of Chinese text, compared with most alphabetic languages, is that there is no interword spaces to mark word boundaries. As words play very important roles in Chinese reading, the understanding of text should be based on word recognition. Word recognition is found on the premise that text is segmented properly. Therefore, the word recognition and word segmentation of Chinese readers is a key issue of linguistic psychology. On the basic of previous studies, present dissertation examine the word recognition and segmentation of Chinese combinational ambiguous word.
Present dissertation includes two main studies. In the first study, we explored the activations of word representations during the processing of Chinese combinational ambiguous word. These are words where some of the component characters constitute another word (i.e. embedded word). In Experiment 1, participants read sentences with combinational ambiguous wordswhose firs two characters can constitute an embedded words while their eye movements were monitored. Reading times on these words were longer when the frequencies of the embedded words were lower, and were longer when the frequencies of the whole words were lower. Survival analyses showed that the divergence pointfor the embedded-word frequency set was earlier than that for the whole-word frequency set. In Experiment 2, participants read sentences with combinational ambiguous words whose last two characters can constitute an embedded words while their eye movements were monitored. The frequency effect of embedded word were observed as well. These results suggest that embedded words are activated when Chinese readers processcombinational ambiguous word, and this activation is earlier than for the whole word.
The first study only revealed that the representation of embedded word was activated during reading combinational ambiguous word. However, whether this activation influences the segmentation of combinational ambiguous word remains an open question. In the second study, we examined the mechanism of word segmentation during reading Chinese combinational ambiguous word and explored Chinese readers strategy of word segmentation. In Experiment 3, participants read sentences with combinational ambiguous words whose firs two characters can constitute an embedded words while their eye movements were monitored. We varied verbs prior to target words such that the plausibility of target word were manipulated. Four conditions of sentences were constructed: (a) a plausible combinational ambiguous target word with its embedded word plausible at the point it appeared, (b) a plausible combinational ambiguous target word with its embedded word implausible at the point it appeared, (c) a plausible two-character target word, (d) an implausible two-character target word. No plausibility effect of embedded word were observed which indicated that the activation of embedded word would not lead to its segmentation. Chinese readers tend to segment the combinational ambiguous word as a whole. In Experiment 4, we explore the relationship between the plausibility of embedded word and the plausibility of the whole word. Also, We varied verbs prior to target words such that the plausibility of target word were manipulated. Four conditions of sentences were constructed: (a) a plausible combinational ambiguous target word with its embedded word plausible at the point it appeared, (b) a plausible combinational ambiguous target word with its embedded word implausible at the point it appeared, (c) a implausibility combinational ambiguous word with its embedded word plausible at the point it appeared, (d) an implausible combinational ambiguous word with its embedded word implausibility at the point it appeared. No plausibility effect of embedded word were observed when the combinational ambiguous target words were plausible. However, we do observed the plausibility effect of embedded word when the combinational ambiguous target words were implausible. The results showed that when the combinational ambiguous target words are implausible, readers found that segmenting combinational ambiguous word as a whole cannot lead to a coherent mental representation. Readers then adjusted their strategy of segmentation to segment embedded word so that they can rebuild a coherent mental representationwhich showed that Chinese reader’s strategy of word segmentation is flexible and immediate.
Finally, we discussed some inspiration of present dissertation on Chinese word segmentation and recognition as well as building models of word segmentation and recognition in Chinese reading. We also raise some questions for proceeding potential further studies. |
修改评论