Semantic Radical Consistency in Incidental Chinese Vocabulary Learning: A Comparison of Native Readers and Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) Learners

Semantic radicals are meaning-bearing sublexical components of Chinese characters that have been shown to facilitate incidental vocabulary learning in L1 Chinese readers. However, it remains unclear whether this sublexical mechanism extends to learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), and how semantic radicals shape the online processing and learning outcomes of novel words in both populations. The present study investigated the role of semantic radical consistency in incidental vocabulary learning among L1 readers and CFL learners. Eye movements were recorded while participants read sentences containing novel two-character pseudowords whose semantic radicals were manipulated to be either consistent or inconsistent with the word’s semantic category. Both groups successfully acquired orthographic and semantic representations of the novel words, with L1 readers outperforming CFL learners. Eye-tracking data revealed a significant group-by-consistency interaction during initial exposures. L1 readers exhibited dynamic sensitivity to radical consistency, allocating more fixation time to inconsistent items at first exposure and rapidly adjusting by the second, whereas CFL learners showed no reliable online consistency effects. Moreover, reading time proved a task-specific predictor of learning outcomes. Longer initial fixation benefited orthographic learning, while extended cumulative reading time was negatively associated with semantic accuracy. Taken together, these findings suggest that sublexical semantic cue deployment during real-time reading is qualitatively distinct between L1 readers and CFL learners.