The Effect of the Insertion of Kasre-ye Ezâfeh on the Speed of Reading and Reading Comprehension of Persian Texts

Abstract: The present study seeks to examine whether the insertion of a symbol for Kasre-ye Ezâfeh in Persian written sequences affects the speed of reading and reading comprehension. Therefore، in order to have a scientific base، some texts containing tatâboɁ-e ezafât were examined by availing from the processing models of reading and parsing principles. The speed of reading of 10 examinees was examined by applying quasi-experimental method and Newton’s Formula. The results indicated the improvement in speed when Kasre-ye ezâfeh was inserted into the text. The lack of this element in the garden-path sentences including tatâbo-Ɂe ezafât brings about some disfluencies; in this case one needs to add reanalysis and repair processes to the parsing. These added processes are the most important causes in the reduction of the speed of reading comprehension because much more time is needed for processing the written sequences. To show this، the phrase markers of some sentences including tatâboɁ-e ezafât were drawn while they were parsed with and without the insertion of the symbol for Kasre-ye ezâfeh to represent the parsing as well as the reanalysis and repair processes iconically. Finally، the sentences in question were studied along with their phrase markers which showed how ambiguity emerged when no symbol for Kasre-ye ezafeh was inserted and how the lack of this symbol distorted reading comprehension and reduced the speed.