| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 華語文教學研究所 === 103 === Vocabulary is the basic element to constitute a language. Also, accumulation, accurate grasp and application of vocabulary play the keys to sophisticate language skills. Hence, vocabulary teaching has always been the focus of foreign language learning. The special language phenomenon—reverse-ordered structure is one of the difficulties among vocabulary for Chinese learners. For example, the difficulty of differentiating reversed-ordered words, such as “shìhé” and “héshì”, “dàitì” and “tìdài”, “láiwǎng” and “wǎnglái” etc. are because word class and semantic changes of reverse-ordered words have no rules to follow. Moreover, learners become confused, and they also misunderstand the semantic changes. Thus, this will in turn cause learning errors. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether reverse-ordered words can cause comprehension difficulties when Chinese learners are facing the choice of reverse-ordered words. This study also wants to evaluate whether it can influence Chinese learners’ different levels of acceptance in the use of vocabulary, and can show difference of comprehension toward reverse-ordered words. Furthermore, some reverse-ordered words are difficult to deliberate the change of significance from the surface of the vocabulary, and some have varying level and difficulty. Thus, in response to these difficulties, this study wants to determine what kind of comprehension and learning strategies Chinese learners take.
The research corpus is mainly from “8000 Chinese words” compiled by Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SCTOP) and from current two-syllable words in Taiwan. About 400 groups of words are collected in total. The researcher selected 43 groups of words to compile the questionnaire and interview outline through text analysis and stratified sampling of characteristics of word class, semantic, difficulty levels and so on. Besides, research participants are those who have already taken and passed the advanced-high level of Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) or perform the equivalent or higher level of Chinese. Research data is collected from questionnaire and interview survey. Through statistical analysis of 44 valid questionnaires, the researcher observes the learning condition, interrelated relevance and distinctiveness shown in three detection—word class judgment, semantic judgment and vocabulary comprehension of the Chinese learners with four factors in “language type” and “Chinese cultural circle”, and “word class relevance” and “semantic relevance” of reversed-ordered words. In addition, through the survey and transcript of 13 interview subjects, this study synthesize the strategies of learning and comprehension process that the Chinese learners use when facing Chinese reversed-ordered words.
This study discovered that “language type” factor and “Chinese cultural circle” factor do not have significant level in academic performance of word class judgment, but they are significant and highly correlated with semantic judgment and vocabulary comprehension. Moreover, the result of the data also confirms that the influence of “Chinese cultural circle” factor is greater than “language type” factor, which represents the link to Chinese cultural background crosses the barrier of language structure. Results also illustrate that “word class relevance” and “semantic relevance” can affect Chinese learners in judging word class, speculating semantic, comprehending vocabulary and causing choosing difficulties. Moreover, the interview data shows that differences in comprehension strategies of Chinese reversed-ordered words appear in Chinese cultural background factor; learning strategies have no difference, which means various types of Chinese learners have their own learning style.
Finally, the results turn out four conclusions: 1. Chinese learners, at and beyond the level of intermediate-high, rely more on meanings comprehension than grammar knowledge. Strategies for them are supposed to emphasize on the comprehension of morpheme-meanings or word-meanings. 2. Since Chinese cultural background plays an important role on learning effect, consideration of country differences is necessary for pedagogy. 3. Reverse-ordered words can commonly cause difficulties, thus it prominents the necessity of separating them as another teaching theme. 4. Strategies of Chinese learners are related to their various types of learning style, of which teachers could encourage them to use for improving the sense of language.
|
|---|
