L2 learning of opaque Chinese compounds through elaborative encoding

Chinese compounds consist of two to four characters but function as single word. If the compounds are semantically opaque and contain unfamiliar characters, learners will resort to learning them individually by rote. However, given the large number of Chinese compounds, rote learning can place an excessive burden on memory. To facilitate L2 learning of opaque Chinese compounds, the present study proposes a method called elaborative encoding. In this study, L2 learners were given a booklet with 26 two-character opaque compounds. With elaborative encoding, participants learned the English meanings of the compounds through short metaphorical explanations. With rote memorization, participants learned the compounds’ English meanings without any explanation. To test the effects of elaborative encoding, a Chinese-to-English translation task was conducted immediately after training, five days later, and 14 days later. The results showed elaborative encoding was superior to rote memorization in retaining the meanings of the opaque compounds.

汉语复合词由两到四个字组成、作为一个单位行使词的功能。如果复合词词义不透明、汉字字义不熟悉，二语习得者常常只能机械记忆。但由于复合词总数众多，机械记忆的学习方法会对记忆力造成很大负担。为提高记忆复合词的效率、学习分析复合词的知识技能，本研究引入了释义法。实验中，学生使用释义法和机械记忆学习26个不透明复合词。在两种方法中，学生均要学习不透明词的读音和英文解释，但只有释义法包含每个不透明词的比喻义解释。在学习这26个词之后的当天、5天后和14天后，学生需参加一项汉译英测试来考量学习效果。测试结果显示，释义法比机械性记忆法更有效，更有利于记忆这些不透明词的词义。