Effects of Character Illustration Modalities on the Learning of Chinese Vocabulary
Zhengbin Lu

Abstract
Chinese characters are the script for the Chinese written language. They are pictographic, and unlike the English script, they cannot be spelt out in letters. Stroke is the basic component of a Chinese character, just like a letter to an alphabetic word. The construction of a character requires adding one stroke to another, following a certain sequence called stroke order. In both print and digital formats, character construction processes can be illustrated with different stroke display modalities. Character illustrations are widely used for the purpose of helping learners learn stroke orders; they can also serve as visual aids for learner to memorize character vocabulary. Yet, there has been a lack of experimental studies to identify the effects of character illustration on the learning of character vocabulary. This groundbreaking experimental study examined the effects of three character-illustration modalities on Chinese as a foreign language learners’ learning of Chinese character words.

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