Expanding horizons of cross-linguistic research on reading: The Multilingual Eye-movement Corpus (MECO)

Scientific studies of language behavior need to grapple with a large diversity of languages in the world and, for reading, a further variability in writing systems. Yet, the ability to form meaningful theories of reading is contingent on the availability of cross-linguistic behavioral data. This paper offers new insights into aspects of reading behavior that are shared and those that vary systematically across languages through an investigation of eye-tracking data from 13 languages recorded during text reading. We begin with reporting a bibliometric analysis of eye-tracking studies showing that the current empirical base is insufficient for cross-linguistic comparisons. We respond to this empirical lacuna by presenting the Multilingual Eye-Movement Corpus (MECO), the product of an international multi-lab collaboration. We examine which behavioral indices differentiate between reading in written languages, and which measures are stable across languages. One of the findings is that readers of different languages vary considerably in their skipping rate (i.e., the likelihood of not fixating on a word even once) and that this variability is explained by cross-linguistic differences in word length distributions. In contrast, if readers do not skip a word, they tend to spend a similar average time viewing it. We outline the implications of these findings for theories of reading. We also describe prospective uses of the publicly available MECO data, and its further development plans

Text reading in English as a second language: Evidence from the Multilingual Eye-Movements Corpus

Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called MECO L2 (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants' reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 reading proficiency proposed in prior literature: reading fluency and comprehension in L1, proficiency in L2 component skills of reading, extralinguistic factors, and the L1 of the readers. Major findings included (a) a fundamental contrast between the determinants of L2 reading fluency versus comprehension accuracy, and (b) high within-participant consistency in the real-time strategy of reading in L1 and L2. We conclude by reviewing the implications of these findings to theories of L2 acquisition and outline further directions in which the new data resource may support L2 reading research

Grammar and information structure. A study with reference to Russian

This thesis is dedicated to the study of information structure (IS) dividing information into given/new, salient/backgrounded etc. There is an information structure represented in the discourse mental model and an information structure encoded in the grammar, which indirectly reflects it (as the tense system of the language indirectly reflects our mental representation of time), and the interface between the two. Our conceptual system is known to be very rich, and only a fraction of the information contained in it can be expressed by the grammar. The main question of the dissertation is what information from the discourse IS system passes through the narrow channel at the interface and gets encoded in the grammatical IS system and by what means, and what information is lost? This question requires extensive research because there is little agreement both about the means of encoding in the grammatical IS system and about the meanings encoded. To answer it, IS-related word order variation and prosodic phenomena are analyzed (primarily in Russian, but also in several other languages). The following claims are the most important for this thesis. First, it argues that IS notions in the grammar are relational (such as ‘more or less accessible’: e.g. A is more accessible than B) rather than categorical (such as ‘given’ or ‘new’: e.g. A is given, B is new). An IS model capable of encoding and interpreting such notions is developed. It is based on two IS scales (accessibility and salience). The means of encoding are syntactic configurations (defined in terms of the order of merger: e.g. A is merged above B, and interpreted according to the interface rule). They result from EM and independently motivated movement or are derived by means of IS-related ‘free IM’ (as it was introduced in Chomsky (2005)). Crucially, relational IS notions cannot be encoded by means of IS features, which constitutes an important argument for configurational and against feature-based IS models. Second, prosodic IS phenomena are deduced from syntactic configurations in the proposed model. This sets it apart from other configurational IS theories (including the major ones developed by Reinhart, Neeleman and Szendröi), which rely on some form of prosodic encoding. Third, a novel model of the EPP in the Tense domain is proposed for Russian (considering EPP-driven movement is essential for this work because IS-related reorderings are ‘superimposed’ on it). This model makes an interesting addition to the EPP typology (showing that Russian is not anomalous in this respect and patterns with English). More globally, it removes one of the most significant arguments for dissociating the EPP and agreement. References: 1. Chomsky, N. (2005). On phases. Ms., MIT, Cambridge, MA. 2. Neeleman, A., & Reinhart, T. (1998). Scrambling and the PF interface. In M. Butt & W. Geuder (Eds.), The projection of arguments: Lexical and compositional factors (pp. 309-353). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. 3. Reinhart, T. (2006). Interface strategies: Reference-set computation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 4. Szendröi, K. (2001). Focus and the syntax-phonology interface. Doctoral dissertation, University College London