Abstract
The study investigated the influence of the language of background music with lyrics (Chinese and English) on Chinese reading comprehension after controlling for English listening proficiency. A total of 38 Chinese English learners from a university were enrolled in a within-subject design experiment. All participants were exposed to three background conditions: silence, English background music with lyrics (EL-BGM), and Chinese background music with lyrics (CL-BGM). The results showed that participants’ Chinese reading performance was negatively influenced by EL-BGM, with significantly lower reading efficiency and reading rate. Participants with better English listening ability had higher Chinese reading efficiency under the EL-BGM condition. Possible explanations for these findings in terms of the interference-by-process hypothesis, the attentional capture account, and the duplex-mechanism account are discussed.
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