Insights Into the Processing of Collocations During L2 English Reading: Evidence From Eye Movements

Abstract

We report an eye movement experiment that investigates the effects of collocation strength and contextual predictability on the reading of collocative phrases by L2 English readers. Thirty-eight Chinese English as foreign language learners (EFL) read 40 sentences, each including a specific two-word phrase that was either a strong (e.g., black coffee) or weak (e.g., bitter coffee) adjective-noun collocation and was either highly predictable or unpredictable from the previous sentence context. Eye movement measures showed that L2 reading times for the collocative phrases were sensitive to both collocation strength and contextual predictability. However, an interaction effect between these factors, which appeared relatively late in the eye movement record, additionally revealed that contextual predictability more strongly influenced time spent reading weak compared with strong collocations. This was most likely because the greater familiarity of strong collocations facilitated their integration, even in the absence of strong contextual constraint. We discuss the findings in terms of the value of collocations in second language learning.

Is there a processing advantage for verb-noun collocations in Chinese reading? Evidence from eye movements during reading

“…Separate analyses were conducted for the target phrase as a whole and for its noun (see Carrol and Conklin, 2014 ; Vilkaite, 2016 ; Li et al, 2022 ). For full phrase analyses, we report a measure of the initial (i.e., first-pass) processing of the phrase; namely first-pass reading time (FPRT, the total number of fixations from the phrase’s initial forward-directed fixation until a progressive eye movement to its right or a regression to its left), alongwith measures that can detect changes in how the phrase is processed at a later time, namely regression-path reading time (RPRT, the total duration of fixation from the initial fixation on a phrase until the eye moves progressively to the right, encompassing any fixations that occur after a regression from that phrase; Liversedge et al, 1998 ), regressions-in (the likelihood of reverting back to the original phrase through regression), and total reading time (TRT, the total number of fixations on the phrase regardless of when these are made during sentence processing).…”