关键词: 新词, 词汇词, 词汇化, 熟悉性, 眼动

Abstract: Language is constantly changing and developing dynamically. As new words are emerging, old ones disappear. The development of new word lexicalization is from discrete units of non-words to fixed phrases, and its end point is words. When a new word is completely lexicalized, its new word status will be terminated. The lexicalized output is a word, and the so-called lexical level is the study of the degree of vocabulary coagulation. The issue regarding how a new word is internalized into a real word in our minds is unclear in psycholinguistics. In contemporary Chinese, some new words have become words or are developing into words. The present study investigates to what extent these new words become lexicalized，and whether there are any differences in terms of the lexicalization between frequently used new words and vocabulary words from the Modern Chinese Dictionary. In the present study, eye-movement technology was used to explore the difference of lexicalization degree between new words and vocabulary words. Forty-three students from Tianjin Normal University participated in the experiment. They were all native speakers of Chinese with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Eye movements were recorded using a SR Research 1000, and forty-two sentences (including 14 fillers sentences) were presented in simple Song font in black on a white background. We adopted a 2 (Word Type: new words vs. vocabulary words) × 2 (Familiarity: high vs. low) within-subject design. To analyze the data, linear mixed-effects models were constructed using the lme4 package in R. Contrasts were reported both for the main effect of word type and familiarity. A ‘full’ random structure was implemented specifying subjects and items as random factors including all varying intercepts and slopes of the main effects and their interaction. Results showed that the main effect of familiarity was significant in gaze duration, regression time and total fixation duration, such that the processing time of high-familiar new words was shorter than that of low-familiar new words. The main effect of word type was not significant in the early stage or the late stage of eye-movement processing. There was no significant difference between new words and vocabulary words in first fixation duration, gaze duration, regression time, total fixation duration and skipping rate. It indicates that some new words have reached the same level of lexicalization as vocabulary words, and the word-superiority effect exists in some new words. In addition, the interaction between new words and vocabulary words was not significant in all eye movement indicators. The present study suggests that some new words have reached the same level as the lexicalization of vocabulary words in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. There is no strict boundary between new words and words, and some new words have been completely lexicalized or have a strong tendency to develop into words. The familiarity effects occur for new words, indicating that the familiarity plays a major role in the lexicalization of new words.

Key words: new words, vocabulary words, lexicalization, familiarity, eye movements.