Interword spacing effects on reading Mandarin Chinese as a second language

Abstract

This study tested the effects of interword spacing on the speed and comprehension of readers of Mandarin Chinese as a second language (CSL) of different proficiency levels and from typologically different orthographic backgrounds. Unspaced and spaced reading tasks were used to examine whether participants whose first languages (L1) were written in a spaced fashion read texts differently than those whose L1 was written in an unspaced fashion, and to determine whether interword spacing had different effects on the performance of CSL intermediate and advanced readers. The results showed that readers whose L1s were written in spaced fashion were not affected by the interword spaces, while readers whose L1 was written in unspaced fashion, especially those at the advanced level, were slowed down by the artificially added interword spacing in texts in Chinese as a second language (L2). It is hypothesized that the different effects of interword spacing on participants from different orthographic backgrounds are due to cross-language transfer from L1 to L2 reading.