Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2017

Cognitive Mechanisms in Reading Ancient Chinese Poetry: Evidence from Eye Movements

(Abstract)

Chen Qingrong and Yang Yiming

Of all literary forms, poetry is the one with the longest history and widest circulation. Ancient Chinese poetry has become one of the most basic cultural “genes” of the Chinese; it has even shaped their preference, in writing and reading,for language marked by tone patterns, antitheses, and rhyme, assonance, etc. We employed eye-tracking technology to investigate the cognitive mechanism underlying the understanding of rhyme and poetic character in the reading of ancient Chinese poems. Our findings show that the effect of rhyme is felt throughout the reading. In other words, at the early stage the expectation of rhyme regulates the poem’s rhymes and in the latter stage it constrains the understanding of the poem’s semantics. This means that in such reading, the Chinese expect a language with harmonious tone patterns and consonance of form and meaning. Research along these lines can provide an initial approach to the exploration of discourse processing mechanisms in the context of traditional Chinese culture.