Cognitive processing of phonetic consistency by second language learners of Chinese: an eye-tracking study of listening and reading Chinese character

漢字對於拼音語言背景的華語學習者而言，一直是較難掌握的內容，他們在初學華語的階段，很快就需要記認與書寫與母語文字系統差異極大的漢字，所以經常遇到困難。正由於缺乏相關背景知識，華語學習者的漢字識別和心理認知歷程必然與母語者有所差異。然而語言離不開書寫與閱讀，若要增進中文能力，就必須提升本身的字彙量。漢字總數以形聲字數量最多，形聲字主要可以拆解為聲旁及義旁兩個部分，功能上多以表音及表義區分。關於母語學童的識字研究，常以「聲旁一致性」作為討論主題，透過唸名作業探討學童的識字過程，學者發現這種中文的形音對應關係是隨著學習歷程發展出來的，年級越高的學童，越能看到顯著效果，與識字量和閱讀能力的關聯密不可分。至於成人華語學習者，是否也能在學習經驗中累積出這種形音一致性的對應概念，是以往較少細究的內容。本論文關注此一議題，進行記錄眼動的心理學實驗，探討形音一致性高低對不同程度華語學習者在辨識單字的處理效率和其背後的認知意義。 論文實驗採用漢字聽讀整合的作業形式，請受試者聽取經由耳機播放的語音訊息，在電腦螢幕上點選對應的字形，藉由眼動儀器的記錄，分析眼睛對於目標字和無關字的凝視比例變化。實驗操弄目標字的聲旁一致性，並依照中文能力將受試者分成高、低程度二組，高程度組12人，低程度組10人。除了聽讀作業以外，另外採用語言水平問卷、漢字學習策略問卷、中文年級認字量表以及短文閱讀的眼動實驗做為額外的評量工具，以量測受試者主觀和客觀判斷的中文程度，提供後文討論對外漢字教學的實際建議。 實驗結果顯示中文能力高低與聲旁一致性高低對凝視比例具有影響。高程度組呈現預期的聲旁一致性效果，於目標字語音播放後的300至500毫秒之間呈現顯著差異，高一致目標字的凝視比例顯著高於低一致目標字。這個結果表示隨著學習經驗的積累，即使是拼音文字背景的學習者，也會因為識字量增加而逐漸具備形聲字聲旁一致性的認知能力。低程度組雖然未獲得如預期的一致性效果，但卻發現聲旁結合度效果，受試者對於同一聲旁越多的字，其凝視比率高於同一聲旁較少的字，足見低程度組雖然字彙量遠不如高程度組，但已經掌握部分漢字結構表徵，只是更加仰賴字形訊息，所以聲旁結合度影響較大。本文結果顯示，對拼音語言的華語學習者而言，形聲字的辨認也並非絕對的一字一音，而是受到語音成分介入。本文最後提出如何利用此研究結果於對外漢字教學及教材編製上，以供後續教學研究參考。Learning to read and write Chinese characters is hard for CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) students, especially for those whose native languages are alphabetic languages, would face to a totally different writing system-“Hanzi” at the beginning stage of learning; therefore, it would be a real challenge because of the complexity. Due to lack of background knowledge, CFL students may have a different cognitive process from Chinese native speakers. Nevertheless, to improve language skills and abilities, it is necessary to raise the amount of their Chinese lexicon. Phonetic compounds comprise most of the Chinese characters and can be divided into two parts-a phonetic radical and a semantic radical, which denote the character’s possible pronunciation and meaning. Researchers have found that “phonetic consistency” affects the latency of naming from Chinese native speakers. For elementary school children, the higher grade they are in, the consistency effect is more significant, which related to their learning process of word-recognition. As for CFL learners, we know few from them. The present study focuses on the topic of phonetic consistency, manipulating the eye-tracking methods to investigate the processing efficiency and cognitive meanings from CFL learners of two different levels. The study utilized visual world paradigm of eye tracking methods through a reading and listening task. Subjects would hear a sentence and would be asked to choose the target character from the four on the screen. Fixation proportions of target and unrelated characters were counted in each time bin. The experiment manipulated phonetic consistency value and two groups of subjects participated in this research: the high level group (12 people) and the low level group (10 people), whose native languages were all alphabetic languages. Except for the listening and reading task, we used questionnaires, character recognition test and reading comprehension test to judge subjects’ Chinese reading ability. Results showed that Chinese ability and phonetic consistency affected fixation proportions. For the high level group, the proportion of target was higher in high consistency condition than the low consistency condition after the target onset. Significant consistency effect was found between 300 milliseconds and 500 milliseconds as expectation. For the low level group, there were opposite results compared with high level group and tended to show “phonetic combinability effect” between 300 milliseconds and 500 milliseconds. Subjects had more fixations on those characters with the amount of the same phonetic radicals. It seemed that the visual information attracted more than sound information. These results implicated that CFL students with alphabetic language background have accumulated the phonetic consistency concepts of Chinese phonograms after years of learning; in other words, the phonetic information of Chinese characters also involved in the word-recognition processing for CFL students. At the end, we provided some advices for teaching Chinese as a foreign language based on the present findings