テキストの因果的関係性がEFL学習者の英文読解と推論生成に及ぼす影響

抄録

This study investigated how causal relatedness of a text influences EFL learners' reading comprehension and inference generation. In addition, whether the effects of causal relatedness vary according to learner's individual factors (i.e., L2 reading proficiency and WM capacity) was examined. Overall results showed that although the effect of causal relatedness of the text did not differ according to individual factors, the stronger the causal relatedness between two sentences, the faster learners read the sentences and the more information they recalled (i.e., the linear effect of causal relatedness). Interestingly, the effect of causal relatedness on learners' inference generation varied with their L2 reading proficiency. That is, proficient readers changed the bridging inference generation along with text causality, while less proficient readers did not. These results suggest that two proficiency groups are likely to use different reading processes.