Abstract
English is written with interword spacing, and eliminating it negatively affects English readers. Chinese is written without interword spacing, and adding it does not facilitate Chinese readers. Pinyin (romanized Chinese) is written with interword spacing. This study investigated whether adding interword spacing facilitates reading in Chinese native readers and English readers of Chinese as a second language. Participants performed two sentencepicture verification tasks with sentences written with pinyin or hanzi (characters). Interword spacing facilitated pinyin reading in English readers but not in Chinese readers; it did not affect hanzi reading in either group. The effects of interword spacing on second language reading appear to be determined by characteristics of both readers' first language writing system and the writing system being read.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 757-775 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Applied Psycholinguistics |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2009 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
- General Psychology