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Quantifying proper nouns’ influence on L2 English learners’ reading fluency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2023

Christopher Nicklin Open the ORCID record for Christopher Nicklin [Opens in a new window] ,
Allie Patterson Open the ORCID record for Allie Patterson [Opens in a new window]  and
Stuart McLean Open the ORCID record for Stuart McLean [Opens in a new window]
Christopher Nicklin*
Affiliation:
Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
Allie Patterson
Affiliation:
Tokyo Kasei University, Tokyo, Japan
Stuart McLean
Affiliation:
Momoyama Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: c.nicklin@rikkyo.ac.jp
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Abstract

Proper nouns constitute a lexical class with special properties and are thus treated differently from other words by second language acquisition researchers. An assumption exists that even low-proficiency learners will find them unproblematic, yet research suggests this assumption might be misplaced. The present study involved two self-paced reading experiments designed to investigate proper nouns’ influence on Japanese university students’ reading fluency. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with 60 decontextualized sentences containing 30 proper nouns and 30 common nouns to determine whether they are processed in a similar manner. In Experiment 2, participants read another 60 sentences comprising a book chapter to explore the effects of repeated exposure to a set of proper nouns. The results indicated that proper nouns are processed in a similar manner to common nouns in terms of disrupting reading fluency. The implications for language learning pedagogy, in particular extensive reading, are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , September 2023 , pp. 906 - 929
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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