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The Influence of Chinese Proficiency and Cultural Background on CFL Learners’ Comprehension of Chinese Logogriphs

  • Yizhen Wang

    Yizhen WANG is Lecturer of English at Zhengzhou University. Her research efforts have focused on psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and second language acquisition.

    and Xiaolu Wang

    Xiaolu WANG [corresponding author] is Professor of English at Zhejiang University City College and Zhejiang University, and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University in Australia. Her research efforts have focused on psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and CFL education.

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Published/Copyright: May 18, 2022
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Abstract

This study investigates how Chinese logogriphs are comprehended by learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) with different Chinese proficiencies and cultural backgrounds. Eighty-eight CFL learners from four cultures (South Koreans, Southeast Asians, Western Caucasians and Arabs) were divided into two Chinese proficiency groups according to their HSK scores, and 15 L1 Chinese speakers also took part in the experiment as a control group. The participants were asked to write down how they interpreted Chinese logogriphs in questionnaires. An ANOVA analysis was conducted to examine the effects of Chinese proficiency and cultural background on logogriph comprehension. The results indicate that the accuracy of logogriph comprehension and the frequency of adopting logogriph-solving strategies positively correlated with the learners’ Chinese proficiency, and that those with higher proficiency used more linguistic and cultural knowledge of the target language. As for cultural influence, Western Caucasians tended to think more visually than the other three cultural groups, and South Koreans and Southeast Asians were better at activating Chinese semantic knowledge. The closer the CFL learners’ culture is to Chinese culture, the more similar strategies they adopted to those of L1 Chinese participants. Moreover, the participants’ Chinese proficiency and cultural background show an interactive effect on their logogriph comprehension, with the former factor having a greater influence than the latter in this process.


Zhejiang University / Western Sydney University, Australia

About the authors

Yizhen Wang

Yizhen WANG is Lecturer of English at Zhengzhou University. Her research efforts have focused on psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and second language acquisition.

Xiaolu Wang

Xiaolu WANG [corresponding author] is Professor of English at Zhejiang University City College and Zhejiang University, and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University in Australia. Her research efforts have focused on psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and CFL education.

Acknowledgments

This paper was supported by Major Project of National Social Science Foundation of China (14ZDB155) entitled “Neuropsychological System for Chinese Non-literal Language Processing.”

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Published Online: 2022-05-18
Published in Print: 2022-05-25

© 2022 BFSU, FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy

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