The Influence of Cognitive Pressure and Word Familiarity on English Word Meaning Access Modes: Evidence from the Eye Movement Experiments of Sight Translation and Reading

The process of sight translation includes word meaning access.Since source text understanding and target text production is parallel during sight translation, the cognitive pressure of sight translation is larger than that of reading.This paper explores the influence of cognitive pressure and word familiarity on English word meaning access modes of Chinese English learners.Through eye movement research paradigm, this study compares the gaze duration of correct homophones, homophone errors and spelling control words so as to examine the meaning access modes under different experimental conditions.The present research demonstrates that cognitive pressure influences word meaning access modes.Word meaning was accessed in a direct access mode under high cognitive pressure, while it was accessed in a dual-route access mode under low cognitive pressure.The study also finds that word familiarity was a stable and independent factor to influence word meaning access.Words with high familiarity were accessed in the direct access mode, while those with low familiarity were accessed in the dual-route access mode.