An Experimental Study On The Perception Of Phonetic Clues In Pictophonetic Characters And The Variations By Learners Of Chinese As A Second Language

This study explores the awareness of phonological clues in pictophonetic characters and its development among learners of Chinese as a second language.In this experiment, the subjects were asked to make judgments whether a Chinese character matches a sound when they show up at the same time. There are sixty four character and sixty four sounds too. And they are divided into eight groups by different frequencies and regularities. And 62 learners of Chinese as a second language explored in the experiment are of two levels, high level and intermediate level. All the processes of the experiment carry on a computer with the help of the experimental tool software called E-Prime.The results showed that the high-level subjects performed much better on regular pictophonetic characters than on irregular ones, while the intermediate-level subjects didn't. While these subjects of either level showed some similarities, they could all did a better job in dealing with the task of high frequency characters compared with low frequency characters.On the basis of the results of the study, some suggestions on teaching Chinese as a second language are put forward at the end of the thesis.