7.1.2　Research methodology

As mentioned earlier，the eye-tracking experiment was conducted with the purpose to methodologically complement and support the semiotic analysis of the coherence construction resources in Chapters 4，5 and 6 through exploring the cognitive processes reflected in the readers'reading behavior.

7.1.2.1　Participants

A total of 41 Chinese participated in the experiment.One of them was excluded from the report because he failed to make his eye movement recorded.So the data of 40 participants were valid.Among them more female（29，72.5%）than male（11，27.5%）subjects took part with ages ranging from 20 to 64，with a mean age of 27.7.

They were recruited from Utrecht city，the Netherlands where the experiment was conducted.Most of them（30）were Chinese graduate students，either enrolled in a Dutch university or being during their visit to the Netherlands.3 of the subjects were visiting scholars from Chinese universities and 4 working in Utrecht.The 7 participants had all finished the college education before they went to the Netherlands.Since almost all of the participants had the experience of learning English for many years and were familiar with the context of English teaching and training market in China，they had firsthand or second-hand experiences with the programs provided by English training companies in China before they went abroad.The advantage was that their knowledge and experiences of the context of the material would render their reading/viewing behavior much alike the potential customers these advertisements target at.The disadvantage was their prior knowledge of these contexts might influence their affective reaction and possibly also cognitive process in some way in their reading/viewing behavior.Measures were taken with the attempt to minimize the disadvantage during the experiment.

The participants came to the lab for the experiment and were paid a small amount of money.They were told that this was an eye-tracking experiment on some English learning advertisements，but the purpose of the research was unknown to them.

7.1.2.2　Materials

The materials used in the eye-tracking experiment are the English learning advertisements in my data collection，that is，they are all authentic advertisements instead of manipulated versions of materials.The purpose is to discover the natural cognitive processes when people read.As Shiro（1994）contends，“the study of inferences should focus on what actually happens when‘real’readers are faced with‘real’texts”.

Due to the obvious differences in visual-verbal relations between the Reader Attraction stage and other stages in the English learning advertisements as discussed in Chapter 5，the experiment materials were shown in two series.The first series included only the Reader Attraction section whereas the second series included 5 complete leaflets.The three levels of coherence construction，namely global coherence，local coherence and surface cohesion were used as variables in the selection of the materials.

Reader Attraction materials

17 RA from my corpus of English learning leaflets were selected，representing different degrees of global coherence and local coherence/visual-verbal link.Before the experiments，they had been rated by two raters independently to ensure the balanced distribution of the different types and degrees of visual-verbal relations.The sequencing of these materials was arranged with the consideration of the following factors：

（1）To make sure the types of visual-verbal link are stratified.

（2）To make sure the brand names are stratified.

（3）To make sure these materials have an equal chance in the presentation order，and thus chance for equal attention.

For the first factor，apart from the stratification of materials，the instruction and task in the experiment were also designed in a way which gave no hint to participants at the information processing of the pictorial and verbal signs.

The second factor is also important because these leaflets belong to different English teaching and training corporations in China.Some of them are more well-known and prestigious than others in China.Some also launch image boosting campaigns through various channels in the lifeworld.Thus if the advertisements of a certain brand/organization was presented consecutively，they might have a reinforcement effect on the reader's psychology.The psychological impact，no matter positive or negative，might have a considerable effect on the reader's attitudes towards the materials.

The third factor has a great significance in psychological sense.Because it is possible for participants to grow tired and impatient as they proceed with the experiment process，the initial pages will probably receive longer and more careful reading while the materials presented finally probably receive a very brief reading.To minimize the effect of presentation order on the cognitive process，three versions of the same set of stimuli were developed.They were run in the Clear View program as three independent experiments，approximately one third of the participants took part in each version of experiment（13 for version 1，12 for version 2 and 15 for version 3）and the final results of the three versions were combined in the analysis.

Complete leaflets

5 complete English learning leaflets（including the RA and non-RA）were shown to the participants to examine the eye movement.These leaflets were carefully selected to represent different characteristics in semantic，structural and formal aspects.The pages of each leaflet was showed consecutively to imitate the real life situation and after each leaflet participants could choose to rest a little while or press any key to proceed to the next leaflet.

All the five leaflets were 6-page folders and share similar amount of information and generic structure.All of them were about programs of overall improvement of English proficiency targeted at adult learners so that they would not induce bias to the adult participants who might have very different motivation and experiences in English learning.Leaflets for children's programs or exam-oriented programs were excluded.

What needs to be noted is that，（i）the discussion of the global coherence and local coherence will be concentrated on the Reader Attraction materials because they contain limited quantity of visual and verbal elements and thus are more operational for the researcher to do focused analysis;（ii）the discussion of cohesion in layout will be mainly based on eye movement data collected from the complete leaflets since the cohesive devices work mainly on the level of whole discourses.

7.1.2.3 Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to the three versions of the experiment which differed only in the presentation order of the stimuli.They were told to imagine that they were in China，planning to improve English for some purpose，for example，for study or work abroad，or a better chance of employment and promotion.They were told to browse the advertisements of these English teaching and training companies，with the possibility，not necessarily intention for immediate action，of getting interested in one particular program.The purpose was to get them into the imagined identity of potential customers of these advertisements.After the instruction，the experiment began following the procedure below：

Before the participants began to read/view，they were told that they were going to look at 17 RA pages of English learning leaflets and they should read/look at these pages as naturally as they usually did in non-experimental situations.They were also told that some questions would be asked after the reading/viewing while the type and purpose of the questions remained unknown to them.

When they read/view these advertisements on screen，they saw these stimuli pages marked with number and presented one by one，with a blank screen inserted after each of them.When the participant finished looking at one particular page，he/she could press any key to continue.The blank screens were presented for a set duration—2 seconds.Their function was to remove the effect of visual and psychological delay of the last page on the next one.