Chunking Sentence into Phrases

Sentence chunking is the way in which we divide long sentences into shorter pieces, separated by slight "mental" pauses, in order to help reader, speakers, and listeners organise meaning for communication purposes.

As readers, it is important to have your eyes' fixations lie on the chunking bits; i.e. thought groups marked with slight 'mental' pauses, usually each thought group contains a keyword. Chunking is crucial for comprehending long passages.

Similarly, when we speak English, we do not speak in single words but in groups of words uttered meaningfully and rhythmically.

As listeners, we will also focus our attention on the meaning units rather than individual sounds. It helps better understand speaker if we can follow chunks of the big sound waves we hear.