Joint Contributions of Multilevel Linguistic Knowledge to Character Meaning Retention in L2 Chinese

Abstract

Character learning is a key issue for second language (L2) Chinese learners. However, our understanding is limited regarding the extent to which the multilevel linguistic knowledge simultaneously works for learning characters, particularly for L2 compound character meaning retention. To fill these gaps, two research questions were addressed. (1) What are the relationships among L2 learners' radical knowledge, character knowledge, and character meaning retention? (2) To what extent do radical knowledge and character knowledge independently and jointly contribute to character meaning retention? Fifty-six English-speaking L2 Chinese collegiate participants in the U.S. completed a character retention scale and four linguistic knowledge tasks (radicals and characters) after two character-learning sessions. The main findings showed that radical knowledge and character knowledge independently accounted for 23% and 34% of the variance of character meaning retention, respectively. Their joint contributions explained 41% of the outcome variance. The results suggest a combinational character-teaching approach when learning new compound characters.