The Effect of Radical‐Based Grouping in Character Learning in Chinese as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The logographic nature of the Chinese writing system creates a huge hurdle for Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners. Existing literature (e.g., Shen, 2010; Taft & Chung, 1999) suggests that radical knowledge facilitates character learning. In this project, we selected 48 compound characters in eight radical groups and examined how grouping characters based on their radicals affected the form, sound, and meaning representations of characters and radical knowledge development. We found that for beginning learners, learning radical‐sharing characters in groups consistently led to better recall and better radical generalization than learning in distribution. For intermediate level learners, the grouping factor did not lead to significant differences, while participants in both conditions made improvement in radical perception and radical semantic awareness generalization. We concluded that there is a benefit to presenting learners with recurring radicals in compound characters in groups in character learning and in the autonomous generalization of radical knowledge. We also noted the differences between beginning and intermediate learners in their character perception and learning, and put forward implications for CFL pedagogy.

Effects of Instructional Multimedia Integrated Situational Approach on Students’ Learning Achievement

“…Xu, Perfetti, and Chang (2014) regarded computer multimedia as an effective tool to fulfill situated teaching, as it presented the design principle of the instructional theory. The linked story developed with well-designed software could induce learners' interests so that learners could reflect the learning process in the operation process and contact more accidental possibilities in the cycled execution to efficiently enhance learning achievement (Rani et al, 2015).…”

Word Reading in L1 and L2 Learners of Chinese: Similarities and Differences in the Functioning of Component Processes

“…Despite Chinese being an interesting case that could further our insights into commonalities and differences in L1 and L2 reading acquisition, research on L2 Chinese reading acquisition has been very limited. The small number of existing studies, which focused almost exclusively on adult learners of L2 Chinese, seem to have confirmed the important place of orthographic processing, particularly functional components like semantic radicals, in Chinese word recognition and learning (e.g., Shen & Ke, ; M. Wang, Liu, & Perfetti, ; Xu, Chang, & Perfetti, ; Yang, ). Rarely, however, was there any direct comparison of L1 and L2 learners to enrich our understanding of how the different component processes highlighted earlier are functional in L1 and L2 Chinese reading.…”

Event-related potentials support a dual process account of the Embedded Chinese Character Task

“…Most psycholinguistic models have assumed that radicals are represented in a Chinese reader's mental lexicon (long-term memory) and are used in character processing (Luo, Niki, & Knoblich, 2006;Tang et al, 2016;Wu, Knoblich, & Luo, 2013;Wu et al, 2009). Moreover, previous studies suggest that orthographic and semantic information at radical levels are activated simultaneously (Xu, Chang, & Perfetti, 2014). Thus, it is clear that decomposing a character at a radical level is more automatic and unconscious than the stroke level because both semantic information from experience in Chinese characters and positional information related to visual complexity are functions of radicals, and are processed as a part of natural language function.…”

“…There is much evidence that Chinese readers actively use positional (orthographic) as well as semantic information of radicals in visual character recognition. It is challenging to disentangle the use of positional and semantic regularity in character recognition given that both of them are included within radicals (Tang et al, 2016;Tong & Yip, 2014;Xu et al, 2014), but both are elements of an automatic process. In the first example, they are able to decompose "支" into two meaningful parts: radical "十" and character "又" automatically based on positional information as well as the semantic information related to experience of reading Chinese characters.…”