Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: State University “Higher School of Economics” –
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Researchers from the international MECO project, including specialists Center of Language and Brain HSE University has developed a tool to study English reading in speakers of more than 19 languages. In a large-scale experiment involving more than 1,200 people, scientists tracked eye movements while reading the same texts in English, and then analyzed the level of comprehension. The results showed that even with the same comprehension, the reading process – where the gaze lingers, where it returns, which words it skips – depends on the native language and level of English proficiency.Studypublished in Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
Reading in a foreign language is a complex skill, especially if the reader’s native language is very different. To find out how native language affects reading in English, scientists from 36 universities, including HSE, have teamed up in an international projectMeco, created in 2020. As part of the project, they record the eye movements of native speakers of different languages while reading texts in their native language and in English, and then analyze how fluent the reading is, where the eyes stumble, and what strategies the reader uses.
In the new wave of the MECO project, scientists added data on English reading from 660 people, collected in 16 labs in Europe, Asia, and South America. The experiment was conducted in two stages. First, participants completed behavioral tests: spelling, vocabulary, reading words and pseudowords, motivation, and nonverbal intelligence. Then they silently read 12 short texts in English from a computer screen (approximately at the level of American native-speaking students) and answered questions about their content. During this time, the participants' eye movements were recorded using the EyeLink eye tracker. The study used both new results and information collected in previous stages of the project. In total, the scientists analyzed data from more than 1,200 participants.
The results showed that most participants handled questions about the content of the texts equally well: they understood 70–75% of what they read. However, there was a large spread in the data regarding reading fluency. Native English speakers read the fastest: they had fewer fixations (gaze stops), skipped words more often, and reread less often. The German participants were the most similar to English speakers. However, native speakers of Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and other languages read less fluently and used different strategies.
Interestingly, the level of text comprehension was almost independent of eye movements: participants showed the same results when answering questions on the content regardless of their reading speed. However, fluency was highly dependent on the level of English: the better the participant coped with language tests — vocabulary, grammar, and others — the more confidently their gaze behaved: fewer rereads, more skipped words, fewer fixations.
"We now have a tool that allows us to assess English reading in 19 languages. MECO's open data allows us to compare reading in different languages, compare native speakers and language learners, and track the influence of the native language's writing system – Latin, Chinese characters, or ligature," the authors of the article say. "Over the course of several years, more than 1,200 people have taken part in the project. These data are the basis for dozens of future studies on how native language affects text perception and English reading skills."
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