Abstract:

This study, which included 140 first-year non-English majors as participants, attempts to explore the effects of textual factors on the inference performance in English reading comprehension. The results are as follows. First, the causal sequence context is more conducive to the participants’ inference performance than is the causal flashback context, as it allows them to expend fewer cognitive resources to process the causal relationship when reading. Second, the prominent effect of the first-person perspective needs to be highlighted in medium-length stories with relatively simple plots, as this assists the participants to participate more actively in the inference of contextual patterns. Third, text coherence and narrative perspective have an interactive effect on the participants’ inference performances. In causal sequence order, the dominant effect of the first-person perspective is superior to that of the third-person perspective. The results increase the understanding of the roles that are played by textual elements in reading inference, thus clarifying the impact mechanism of text coherence and narrative perspective on reading inference.

Keywords: text coherence; narrative perspective; reading inference performance; causal sequence version; causal flashback version; EFL context; college English reading teaching

摘要：

本研究以140名非英语专业大学一年级学生为研究对象，探究文本因素对其英语阅读推论表现的影响。研究发现：①相较于因果倒叙的文本情境，受试在因果顺叙的文本情境下的阅读推论表现更优，该情境能让学习者花费较少的认知资源对语篇事件的因果关系进行加工；②第一人称叙事的优势效应需要在情节相对简单的中短篇语境中才会凸显，它能帮助学习者更积极地对语篇的情境模式展开推论；③在对学习者阅读推论表现的影响方面，语篇连贯和人称叙事存在交互作用。在因果顺叙语篇中，受试在第一人称叙事中的阅读推论表现要优于第三人称叙事。研究结果加深了阅读推论领域有关文本有效性的认识，厘清了语篇连贯和人称叙事在阅读推论中的影响机制问题。

关键词: 语篇连贯, 人称叙事, 阅读推论表现, 因果顺叙, 因果倒叙, EFL语境, 大学英语阅读教学