華語為二語學習者對博物館展覽文本中文複合詞之理解

Abstract

本研究旨在探討「華語為第二外語學習者」對於博物館展覽文本中之複合詞的理解過程及方式。本研究方向內容包含三項與中文複合詞處理進程相關之議題：構詞識覺、語義透明度，以及語境。六十位受試者參與本次語言實驗，依據其第一語言背景分類為三組：漢字圈中文學習者、非漢字圈中文學習者，以及母語者。語言實驗依據研究議題，囊括下列三項測驗：字詞判斷測驗、字義推論（無語境情況），以及字義推論（有語境情況），受試者依據指示說明，依序完成三項測驗。受試者於字詞判斷測驗中，圈選出假詞；並於兩項字義推論測驗中，根據題中資訊選出符合字詞之敘述，兩項測驗之區別為有無句子及圖片之語境輔助。研究結果顯示，華語為第二外語學習者處理語義不透明之詞彙時，語言處理進程中的「構詞-語義處理階段」提早涉入之現象，此結果證實華語為第二外語學習者知構詞識覺能力與母語者相似。語義透明度的影響亦顯示出，華語為第二外語學習者面對中文專業用語詞彙時，呈現二元分類之語義難度；有別於母語者，對於華語詞彙透明度呈現細膩的難度分類。語境於本實驗中，基於詞彙語義不透明度之故，非第二外語學習者於詞彙判斷上的首要因素。此結果同時顯示，具有不同第一語言背景的第二外語學習者，於本次實驗中呈現不同表現。漢字圈學習者之表現普遍優於非漢字圈學習者，然而兩組第二外語學習者皆未達到趨近母語者之語言程度。The present study focuses on how Chinese-as-a second language learners (CSL learners) process the meaning of Chinese compound words. Three issues related to compound processing were investigated: morphological awareness, semantic transparency, and context. Sixty participants were invited and divided into three groups based on their L1 backgrounds, namely Sinosphere, non-Sinosphere, and native controls. Three tasks were conducted, including the Lexical Judgement Task (LJT), Lexical Inference Task in Context-Free Condition (LIT-CFC), and Lexical Inference Task in Context-Dependent Condition (LIT-CDC). The participants were required to cross out a pseudo-word in the LJT, to select the correct description of a target word in the LIT-CFC and LIT-CDC; the latter contained a sentence along with a photo.The results revealed that an early morpho-semantic activation was observed in opaque compound processing by the CSL learners, verifying their L2 morphological awareness as the native controls. The semantic transparency effect led to a dichotomous difficulty for Chinese Specific Purposes (CSP) vocabulary; specifically, the CSL learners found opaque words challenging and non-opaque words effortless. In contrast, native speakers had more sensitivity to the compound words with various difficulties of semantic transparency. Given the difficulty of semantic opaqueness, context did not play a vital role facilitating the performance of CSL learners. This result also indicated that the different performance of the two groups resulted from their L1 backgrounds. The Sinosphere group outperformed the non-Sinosphere group, but neither of the two groups achieved native-like competence.