A Study on Chinese Understandability and Learning Ability of Japanese and American Facial Expressions and Emblems

Abstract

This paper considers Chinese understand ability and learn ability of Japanese and American facial expressions and emblems. And it aims to verify one of Hoffer and Akiyama's hypotheses that if the facial expressions and emblems are to be learned by non-natives, the latter will be better memorized and maintained than the former by non-natives. That is, emblems will be learned in less time than that of the facial expressions. The statistical results of our study indicate that Chinese college students could better understand Japanese facial expressions studied here than American facial expressions. Also, our research shows that it is easier for Chinese college students to learn facial expressions than emblems in a given time.