Do readers adjust their lower‐ and higher‐level language skills according to text structures? Evidence from eye movements in Chinese text reading

Abstract

BackgroundReading researchers have generally considered that reading is an interactive combination of top‐down (higher‐level language skill) and bottom‐up (lower‐level language skill) processes. Nevertheless, the mechanisms through which readers apply these skills for online text comprehension are unclear.MethodsThe present study thus used eight classical Chinese (CC) texts and their corresponding vernacular translation (VT) texts for controlling the text structure and meaning to explore such mechanisms in high school students.ResultsWith partial‐out to the influences of (a) students' language achievement scores, (b) word frequency and (c) word length, we observed no significant difference in comprehension accuracy between the CC and VT texts, and the CC texts involved a significantly lower reading speed than did the VT texts. Moreover, the first fixation duration, gaze duration, rereading time and total reading time for the CC texts were longer than those for the VT texts. For all events, CC text reading required a longer fixation duration and significantly longer rereading time and total reading time than did VT text reading. Further observations show that students comprehended CC texts by adjusting their lower‐ and higher‐level language skills.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate that even if CC texts contain a relatively high number of low‐frequency words, as readers get more and more contextual information from the text, they can gradually apply higher‐level reading skills to understand the meaning of the text, which can ease the dependence on word decoding.HighlightsWhat is already known about this topic Lower‐ and higher‐level language skills—which reflect lexical access and higher order text integration, respectively—affect reading comprehension. Theory and research in reading comprehension have emphasised the interactive process of both language skills to lead to successfully understanding text. What this paper adds By using classical Chinese texts and their corresponding vernacular translations to control the meaning of texts, text event structures and the corresponding word sequence, we determined that high school students comprehended classical Chinese texts by adjusting their lower‐ and higher‐level language skills. This study also revealed students' dynamical adjustment of lower‐ and higher‐level language skills within construction and integration phases according to various events. Implications for theory, policy or practice This study demonstrated that word‐based eye‐movement measures can reflect the processing of lower‐ and higher‐level components in online reading and can reveal the even construction and integration processes of construction–integration model theory. By thoroughly examining reading strategies for texts structured according to events, this study revealed how high school students can achieve a certain degree of comprehension of classical Chinese texts through the use of higher‐level language skills.