earticle

영어

The present research aimed to investigate the influence of semantic transparency and familiarity in reading Chinese compound words by Korean-Chinese bilingual children in Yanji, China. Participants were elementary school students in Grade 2, 4, and 6, who were divided into two sub-groups according to Chinese proficiency. Participants were given Chinese compound words, of which semantic transparency (transparent vs. opaque) and familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) were manipulated and asked to decide the meaning of each word by choosing one among four alternatives. The results revealed that response accuracy was higher for semantically transparent words than semantically opaque words in general. However, the semantic transparency effect was interacted with familiarity of words differently in the second, fourth, and sixth grade students. In the semantically transparent word condition, the accuracy of familiar words was higher than that of unfamiliar words in most students except high proficient fourth grade students and low proficient sixth grade students. On the contrary, in the semantically opaque word condition, familiar words were decided more accurately than unfamiliar words in most students except low proficient students in the second grade. In conclusion, results of the current study imply that the elaboration of morphological knowledge by increasing familiarity of words is critically important to improve the Chinese words reading ability of Korean-Chinese children.