What are we teaching when we teach chéngyǔ 成语?

In L2 Chinese education, chéngyǔ 成语 “Chinese idioms” are considered important for advanced proficiency yet marginalised in teaching practice. Current chéngyǔ instruction assumes dictionaries and textbooks reflect native speaker understanding. However, L1 Chinese speakers do not agree with authoritative sources or each other about which expressions are chéngyǔ. Expressions with opaque meanings, irregular structures, and cultural content achieve broad acceptance, while semantically transparent and symmetric expressions are contested. This creates a pedagogical challenge: the expressions easiest for learners to acquire are least likely to be valued as chéngyǔ by native speakers. This paper explores implications of these findings for L2 chéngyǔ instruction. It argues that attending to gradient “chéngyǔ-ness” can inform more conscious teaching choices, with semantically compositional expressions efficiently developing vocabulary and fluency, while noncompositional expressions signal cultural literacy and sophisticated proficiency. Rather than treating all dictionary-listed “chéngyǔ” as equivalent, instruction should foster pragmatic awareness and communicative competence.

成语在汉语第二语言教学中地位重要，却长期处于边缘。现有教学材料多依赖成语词典与教材，默认这些权威来源反映了母语者对成语的共同认知。然而，实证研究表明，母语者对成语的认定并不一致：语义不透明、结构特殊、具有文化内涵的四字格词语成语度高，语义透明、结构对称的四字格词语成语度低，即便已收录于权威成语词典亦然。这一现象揭示了成语习得性与典型程度之间的内在矛盾——对第二语言学习者而言最易习得的四字格，往往是母语者成语度认定最低的。本文基于母语者成语概念的实证研究，提出两项教学建议：其一，将成语作为具有典型程度差异的模糊语类加以教授，帮助学习者理解不同四字格在汉语交际中所传递的文化意涵；其二，针对语义透明与不透明成语采取差异化教学策略，以兼顾词汇扩展与文化素养两方面目标。上述建议旨在帮助第二语言学习者更准确地理解成语的范畴性质，从而在汉语交际中做出更恰当的成语使用选择。