The Effects of Text Structure on learners’ reading: A multimodal Perspective from eye-tracking

Eye-tracking
  • Second Languages are acquired through exposure to comprehensible input, which is slightly beyond learners’ current competence.  
  • Input can be oral or written. 
  • Comprehensible Written Input refers to a text that learners can understand even if they are not familiar with all the words and structures in it. 
  • Written texts have traditionally been verbal in nature, i.e. mostly composed of words, linear, read from left to write, etc. 
  • With the development of computer-based technologies, texts have undergone significant shifts (placed in interaction with other modes of communication in ways unheard of.) 
  • These texts, even their linguistic part alone, cannot be comprehended without a clear idea of how the other modes are contributing to the meaning of the text.
TEXT 1
TEXT 2
TEXT 3
TEXT 4
TEXT 5
TEXT 6
TEXT 7
TEXT 8
TEXT 9
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  • The new text formats challenge the adequacy of traditional linguistic frameworks for their analysis.
  • The rise of these formats necessitates a reevaluation of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) reading theories rooted in a linguistic view of texts.
  • To examine texts whose compositional elements fall beyond language bounds, a multimodal framework was deemed suitable as it is a multidisciplinary enterprise that accounts for meaning in all its forms. 
  • Multimodality recognizes that meanings in different modes (script, images, diagrams, color, layout, etc.)  are interconnected within a text.
  • Texts mixing linguistic and non-linguistic modes may benefit learners by offsetting challenges like limited writing system knowledge, vocabulary, grammar familiarity, and reading strategies. 
  • These new textual formats offer new research avenues in SLA as they prompt a reevaluation of existing theories. 

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