Psycholinguistic Research Related to Chinese Character Recognition: Implications for CFL Teaching

This chapter offers a review of findings in the field of psycholinguistics related to character and word recognition, covering both native language and Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) contexts. The content encompasses the influence of stroke count, the number and position of radicals on character recognition as well as the word-superiority effect and neighbourhood effects observed in character recognition. Building upon these research insights, we summarise their potential value in CFL instruction and propose relevant teaching strategies. It is hoped that the insights presented in this chapter will offer new perspectives for researchers and educators on the potential contribution of psycholinguistics, thereby facilitating better guidance for CFL learners.