A dual coding model of processing Chinese as a second language : a cognitive-load approach

The research was conducted in Sydney and Hong Kong using students, from grades 5 to 9, whose first language or teaching medium was English, learning to read Chinese as second language. According to cognitive load theory, the processing of single Chinese characters accompanied by pictures should impose extraneous cognitive load and thus hinders learning. In Experiments 1a and 1b, simple Chinese characters appeared to be processed likes pictures. Reading Chinese characters without pictures produced significantly better learning outcomes than reading them with pictures, suggesting that subjects processed Chinese characters and their English translations according to the Dual Coding model. In Experiment 2, grade 6 students learned to read two-character compound words in word-and-word and picture-and-word conditions. As expected, phonetic compounds were learned more effectively when presented along with the same word written in English than when accompanied by a picture of the object represented. In Experiment 3, grade 6 students were used in an investigation of the differential learning effects of two-character-compound and two-single-characters formats. The two-single-characters format, being of low element interactivity, resulted in better learning outcomes than the compound format, in which the two components were necessarily of higher element interactivity. In Experiment 4, six concrete sentences and six abstract sentences were used to investigate the learning strategies used by grade 9 students in processing second-language Chinese sentences. In a quotno-picture quot condition, a Chinese sentence was printed on each learning card underneath the English translation; and in a quot with-picture quot condition, a picture was positioned above the condition pair of sentences. As expected, the mean learning outcomes were greater for the no-pictures than for the with-picture conditions, and the difference between the no-picture and with-picture means was greater for concrete sentences than for abstract sentences. A logographic visual processing strategy was probably employed in reading concrete sentences but an analytic strategy used in reading abstract sentences. A new dual-coding model, based on the bilingual dual coding theory for different patterns in reading Chinese as a second language at various structural levels of processing was proposed