Semantic Transparency Research On Frequently Used Chinese Compound Words For Second Language Teaching

The key topic of the report is about Semantic transparency measurement based onfrequently used compound words for second language teaching. The paper analyze andgrade semantic transparency, starting with Chinese morpheme, choosing the angle ofthe relationship and structure of compound word applying combined methods ofstatistical analysis, qualitative and quantitative research. At the same time, attentionswere paid on influences of context for semantic transparency of compound words,trying to unfold and discover its application in vocabulary teaching.The first chapter generally introduces former research results of Chinesecompound words from three perspectives: Chinese compound words research,Chinese teaching and semantic transparency; draw conclusion and conduct analysison.Based on current researches, single case of semantic transparency and its influentfactors are common, but systematical ones are few, big scale statistical ones are inshort. The report is trying to conduct systematical research. As the second languageteaching, Chinese compound words are comprised by three parts: two phoneticcompound words from《dagang》, one from the conmon words in the textbook,6042words in total.The second chapter start from the analysis research of morpheme andfrequently used compound words’ characteristics. For the perspectives of free use,meaning and usage frequency, there are three features: free morpheme is the mainelement to form a compound word, high frequent morphemes are more than lowfrequent morpheme, and one morpheme with many meanings is common. Thesefeatures are foundations that compound word is systematic, lexical meaning isdeducible and predictable, so as for the semantic transparency is measurable. Basedon the different relationship between morpheme meaning and lexical meaning, there are four level compound words: completely transparent word, relatively transparentword, less transparent word, in-transparent word. There are nine factors: type,frequency,polysemy，grammatical relationship, productivity, position, the types ofdifferent meanings in the morpheme, word frequency.The third chapter further confirms influencing factor of word transparencythrough experiment. Taking Chinese native speaker and second language learner assubject participants, we test whether word transparency is impacted by the other fivefactors through compounding morpheme productivity, position, the types of differentmeanings in the morpheme into other factor, removing word frequency, choosing thesuitable words and balancing all kinds of factors. We also test the influence oflearner’s Chinese level and native language in word transparency. The result ofvariance analysis multivariate analysis through SPSS shows that the order of factorsinfluencing word transparency is: polysemy＞grammatical relationship＞frequency＞type(native speaker);polysemy＞frequency＞grammatical relationship＞type＞Chinese level＞native language background(second language speaker). In addition,through the multivariate regression analysis of different level in these nine factors, wehave decided the different influence of different level in word transparency.The forth chapter has decided the computing method of word transparency,generalized the distribution of different word, and drawn the chart‘The information ofword transparency in Chinese Language teaching. The parameter decides the wordtransparency in the chart is based on the factor of second language learners, includingseven basic parameters and twenty seven kinds’ parameter. By assigning to theparameter according to multivariate regression analysis, word transparency is revealed.It shows that the amount of four kinds word is relatively transparent are most,completely transparent word are relatively most, less transparent word are relativelyleast, in-transparent word are least.The fifth chapter measures the word transparency according to its context. Itshows that contest impacts word transparency, in-transparency word depend oncontext heavily, context can advance the transparency of the in-transparency word,transparency word depends on context relatively less, and the context generally haveno impact on the prediction of meaning of transparency word.The six chapter makes suggestions on how to use word transparency in teachingChinese as a second language and give advices to vocabulary syllabus.