There are 5 types (dimensions) of information links between sentences in narrative texts: protagonist, intentionality, causality, temporality, and spatiality. Unlike the first 3 dimensions, little is known about how students of English as a foreign language (EFL) understand temporality and spatiality during reading. This eye-tracking study explored whether and how Japanese EFL readers understand these intersentential links by differentiating their initial and late processes during reading. In the experiment, 39 Japanese university students read short narrative texts. The texts contained a target sentence (e.g., Patricia ordered a cup of coffee) that was either consistent or inconsistent with a preceding context sentence (e.g., She was a coffee lover or She did not like bitter drinks) in terms of the protagonist, temporality, and spatiality. Students’ eye movements during reading were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that the students did not understand the intersentential links of any dimensions in their initial processes but did understand protagonist links in their later processes (lookbacks). These findings suggest that EFL students’intersentential comprehension of multiple dimensions is limited compared to that of first-language readers both in terms of the number of dimensions understood and in terms of the processes during reading. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for education and research.
