Does subtitle segmentation via spaces facilitate Chinese viewers’ reading? An eye-tracking study on the Chinese subtitling of English documentaries

Abstract Interlingual subtitle reading is cognitively demanding, with audio information being in viewers’ foreign language. Chinese subtitle reading is particularly effortful, as the lack of inter-word markers intensifies viewers’ effort to delineate linguistic units. This study aims to explore whether segmenting Chinese subtitles with spaces may impact viewers’ processing effort, viewing experience, and comprehension via an eye-tracking experiment. It focuses on the Chinese subtitling of English documentaries, which are information intensive. Eighty-six participants took part in the experiment. Two parallel versions of a documentary clip were prepared, one with unspaced subtitles and the other with spaced subtitles. In the spaced version, spaces were inserted between subtitle segments which were within Chinese viewers’ perceptual span and were semantically coherent. Participants were randomly assigned to watch one version. Data analyses show that the group of participants watching the spaced version demonstrate lower total fixation duration, first-pass gaze duration, and fixation count, larger saccade amplitude, and fewer regressions, and there is no significant difference between the two groups’ comprehension scores. It suggests that the exploratory method of subtitle segmentation reduces Chinese viewers’ processing effort, improves their viewing experience, and does not hamper their comprehension.