L2 Arabic learners’ processing of Arabic garden-path sentences: a consistent reading pattern
Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the
L2 Arabic learners’ reading process is affected by the incomplete representation
of speech (the absence of short vowels and diacritics) while reading ambiguous
sentences (garden path sentences).
Method: With a self-paced reading software program, 41 non-native male
students, aged from 22 to 26, enrolled in King Saud University, participated
in reading 44 sentences (followed by reading comprehension questions)
representing three reading conditions, plain, vowelized-discretized, and
wrongly-vowelized.
Results: For the reading times data, the analysis revealed that the GP structure
had a significant effect on the reading processes of L2 Arabic learners; it took
them longer to read the GP sentences than their non-GP counterparts. For the
reading comprehension, the analysis did not reveal any significant differences
between the means for the percentages of correct responses. For the comparison
between the three reading conditions, a significant difference was found: it took
the participants on average less time to read the GP sentences when presented
plain, and more time with the incorrect representation. However, their reading
comprehension was not affected.
Conclusion: In addition to the good-enough model and the nature of Arabic
morphology, the reading experience, is a good candidate to start with as an
important factor in the interpretation of the ineffectiveness of the GP structure
on the reading comprehension process of Arabic readers, in which the
segregability of Arabic writing system prepare the readers to emphasize some sensory inputs and ignore others based on their past reading experience.
KEYWORDS
garden-path structure, Arabic short vowels, past experience, heterophonic homographic
initial, L2 Arabic learners, reading comprehension
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