LAUSR

ABSTRACT Reading is a very complex task in which readers obtain information to promote reading from not only the fixated word located in the foveal area but also non-fixated words located in the parafoveal area. We aimed to investigate the second language (L2) parafoveal orthographic (letter identity and letter position) processing mechanism adopting the eye-tracking technique and boundary paradigm. We set up four previews for each target: (1) the identity preview (e.g. reporter → reporter), (2) the transposed-letter preview (e.g. repotrer → reporter), (3) the substituted-letter condition (e.g. repokcer → reporter), and (4) the unrelated preview (e.g. chemaful → reporter). There are three main findings. First, L2 readers could extract and utilize the parafoveal orthographic information shared by the preview and the target to affect the late L2 processing stage. Second, when there was only a small difference between the preview and the target, L2 readers did not notice the subtle difference in the parafovea. Third, the identity and position of an internal single letter have little effect on L2 reading compared with the similarity of the whole word in the parafoveal area. Future L2 reading frameworks should be developed to explain these new findings.