研究者已經發現指涉詞在閱讀中的重要性，並且認為許多因素會影響第二外語學習者在閱讀時對於指涉詞的理解，包括學生的第二外語言能力、指涉詞與其先行詞在文本中的距離、以及指涉詞與先行詞關係的清楚程度。另一方面，Schmidt (1990) 認為學生對文法形式的注意力在語言學習中是必要的，而許多研究者亦藉由文本強化的方式來吸引學生的注意力。文本強化或可使文本中的指涉關係變得明顯清楚，讓讀者注意強化目標間的關係，進而幫助讀者對指涉詞關係進行後續的分析達到理解。
然而，雖然過去的研究顯示指涉詞對文本閱讀的重要性，以及許多第二外語學習者經常在理解指涉詞時遇到困難，相關的第二外語指涉詞教學研究似乎並不多。多數文本強化的文獻亦很少探討強化與文本中的指涉詞之關係，因此較難推論文本強化是否對其他文法形式有類似影響。最後，許多文本強化的文獻大多使用非即時方式去推論學習者的注意力情況，而不是在學習者的閱讀過程中進行直接即時觀察。為了填補以上提及的研究缺口，本研究使用即時眼動設備來探討文本因素（指涉詞與其先行詞在文本中的距離與文本加強）和讀者因素（讀者的英語程度）是否會影響以英語為外語學習者之指涉詞關係理解。藉由眼動設備，研究者可以同時了解英語學習者的指涉詞理解表現以及他們在閱讀中的指涉詞理解過程。
三十二位大學生分別編入控制組與實驗組。控制組包含九位高程度英語學習者與七位低程度英語學習者，實驗組包含八位高程度英語學習者與八位低程度英語學習者。兩組受試者在電腦螢幕上閱讀一篇相同內容的英語文章，並且回答指涉詞辨識問題和閱讀理解問題。兩組唯一的差異在於實驗組的目標指涉詞與先行詞字體在英語文章中被粗體加大進行文本強化而控制組則無。兩組受試者在完成閱讀後均接受研究者的訪談。本研究使用三因子混合變異數分析探討受試者在閱讀中的眼動過程以及他們的後續的指涉詞辨識表現。受試者的訪談資料成為三角檢定的輔助資料。
研究結果顯示，在閱讀過程中的初期處理階段，低程度英語學習者在理解指涉詞時間上多於高程度英語學習者；而在閱讀過程中的後期處理階段，低程度英語學習者在理解指涉詞與先行詞的時間上亦多於高程度英語學習者；所有學習者的指涉詞與先行詞理解時間在有文本強化的情況下亦多於在沒有文本強化的情況；而當指涉詞與其先行詞在文本中的距離較遠的情況下，所有學習者理解先行詞的時間也比其在距離較近的情況下多。另一方面，受試者的指涉詞表現結果顯示，高程度英語學習者比低程度英語學習者有較高的指涉詞辨識分數以及較短的回答反應時間；受試者的指涉詞辨識分數受到文本強化因素影響而較不受距離因素影響。研究結果亦顯示受試者的閱讀理解分數在有無文本強化下並未無差異；在有文本強化的情況下，受試者的指涉詞辨識分數與其閱讀理解分數呈現正相關。
根據本研究的發現，建議外語教師可以鼓勵低程度英語學習者藉由閱讀文章前後文來了解指涉詞關係在語境中的涵義；教師亦可依照學生的閱讀能力使用文本強化的方式來引導英語學習者對於文章中指涉詞的注意力，以幫助他們分析文本中的指涉詞關係。最後，為了讓學生更容易將指涉詞學習融合整體文本語境，外語教師可利用相關的教學素材作為上課內容，並避免在缺乏語境下用單一片斷的文法規則進行第二外語指涉詞教學。

Researchers have recognized the importance of anaphors in reading and reported that EFL learners’ understanding of anaphors could be affected by many factors, e.g., language proficiency, the textual distance between antecedent and anaphor, and the clarity of anaphoric relations. On the other hand, Schmidt (1990) claims that learners’ attention to form is necessary in language learning, and many researchers also report that textual enhancement (TE) is one device to call learners’ attention to certain linguistic forms. With the help of TE, the anaphoric relations in texts may become clearer for learners to notice and analyze for comprehension.
However, although literature suggests that anaphors are essential to reading and that many EFL learners have problems in understanding anaphors, few studies on effective second language anaphor instructions can be found. In addition, limited TE literature discusses the relationship between TE and anaphors, which makes it difficult to know whether TE has any influences on other different linguistic forms, e.g., anaphors. Finally, many existing TE studies use the offline measure to infer whether learners pay attention to the form instead of using the online measure to analyze learners’ attention during reading. To fill the research gap, this study used online eye-tracking mechanism to explore whether textual factors (the distance between anaphor and its antecedent, and TE) and reader factor (readers’ English proficiency level) affect EFL learners’ anaphor comprehension. With eye-tracking mechanism, the researcher investigated EFL learners’ anaphor performance and their anaphor processing during reading.
The participants were 32 students in one university, who were divided into control group and experimental group. The control group included nine high EFL proficiency learners and seven low EFL proficiency learners. The experimental group included eight high EFL proficiency learners and eight low EFL proficiency learners. Participants in both groups read one English article with the same content on a computer screen, and answered reference identification questions and reading comprehension questions. The only difference between the two groups was that the target anaphors and antecedents in the article read by the experimental group were marked with boldfaced letters and larger fonts for textual enhancement, but they were not enhanced in the article read by the control group. All participants were also interviewed by the researcher after the reading task. The study used a three-way mixed ANOVA to assess the participants’ eye-tracking data during reading and their later anaphor resolution performance. The researcher also used the participants’ interview data for data triangulation.
The results indicated that at the early processing stage during reading, processing of anaphors by low proficiency learners was longer than that by high proficiency learners. At the late processing stage, processing of anaphors and antecedents by low proficiency learners was longer than that by high proficiency learners. Processing of anaphors and antecedents was also longer when the target forms were textually enhanced than when they were not. Compared with short distance, processing of antecedents was longer when they were far from anaphors in texts. On the other hand, as for the participants’ anaphor resolution performance, high proficiency learners had higher reference identification scores and shorter response time than the low proficiency learners; participants’ reference identification scores were also affected by textual enhancement, rather than by the distance factor. Moreover, participants’ reading comprehension scores were not different at the significant level whether the forms were textually enhanced or not. Participants’ reference identification scores and reading comprehension scores were positively correlated when the forms were enhanced.
Based on these findings, it is suggested that EFL teachers can encourage low proficiency learners to identify the meaning of anaphoric relations in the context by reading the preceding and the following texts; EFL teachers can also use textual enhancement to call the English learners’ attention to the anaphoric relations in texts for analysis based on their proficiency levels. Finally, to help the learners integrate anaphor learning in the context more easily, EFL teachers can use such teaching materials for instructions and avoid teaching second language anaphors in isolation without the context.

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