Word Segmentation in Sentence Reading by Learners of Chinese

Abstract

This study adopted an experimental approach to compare two groups of third-year students learning Chinese in sentence reading comprehension with and without a word segmentation exercise at a southwestern American university. The t-test showed that the experimental group, which received a word segmentation task followed by immediate feedback before reading, outperformed the non-experimental group, which received no treatment before reading. The correlation analysis confirmed that four types of word segmentation errors were moderately correlated with four types of translation errors. This study concluded that introducing word segmentation exercises could facilitate reading comprehension. Based on the findings, pedagogical implementations were suggested.