A Comparative Study Of Chinese-English Polysemous Word Sense Components And Polysemous Word Instruction Design

Despite the Australian government's persistent efforts over the last 30 years,Mandarin Chinese course retention rates remain low,and a lack of high-level Chinese-speaking professionals still hinders the country's growth.Vocabulary education(vocabulary meaning instruction in particular)is a foundational element in language learning and teaching.At the same time,it is an area of great difficulty.In Australian schools,methods of explaining the meanings of new Chinese vocabulary often rely heavily on English translations or are limited to explanations based on synonyms,homonyms and antonyms.Moreover,instruction often neglects to explain the interconnectedness of new vocabulary,pre'viously-studied vocabulary and future course vocabulary,as a result leading to a lack of systematicity in learner vocabulary study.Under such conditions,it's no wonder early students of Chinese encounter communication difficulties and are discouraged from further pursuing language studies.This research makes use of FU Huai Qing's method of'Sense Element Analysis',conducting a survey on English and Chinese speakers to gather information on the sense elements of the various meanings of three single-syllable polysemous words"?","?"and?"?"and conduct an analysis.Additionally,based on this analysis,ideas for vocabulary instruction are given.It is the hope of the author that this research may provide useful insights for instruction of polysemous words for Australian beginning and intermediate-level Chinese learners,improving course outcomes and making a modest contribution to the field of Chinese education.