Pegword Method
The pegword method and the method of recoding are strategies that are more commonly used in learning contexts. In the pegword method, vocabulary is remembered by use of a rhyming list. For instance,
Med en blir du ren
Med to får du sko
Med tre kan du se
Med fire skal du smile
Med fem går du hjem
While this can be a useful method, it tends to create associations based only on rhyme, rather than meaning. A better way to use this method is to locate Norwegian songs or poems that accomplish both meaning and rhyming functions. Norway has a large tradition of good rhymes to be found in folk song and poetry.
Recoding
Most musically inclined English-speakers know the phrase, "Every good boy deserves fudge." This phrase is a actually a device to help students of music memorize the name of notes represented on the lines of the musical staff. The famous Norwegian playwright, Ibsen, can also be remembered as a list of ingredients for a good banana split.
Is
Banan
Sjokolade
Epler
Nøtter
What is the underlying theory behind these strategies of learning Norwegian? There are actually two competing theories involved here. The first is Allan Paivio's "dual-coding hypothesis." Paivio argues that information gets coded in two distinct ways in long-term memory storage. The first codes information exclusively at the verbal level, and the second codes information at the visual level. Most concrete types of information get stored at both of these levels, so that each bit of information has both a verbal and a visual representation. Abstract words, like peace, do not typically have a straightforward visual representation and are harder to learn and remember unless they are associated with something like an image of a dove or an olive branch.
The other theory is Bower's "relational-organizational hypothesis," which supposes not that an image is likely to improve memory simply by virtue of being an additional coding, but rather that images typically facilitate the contextual coding of information. Images, in this viewpoint, are reinforced by the associations of objects within the image. The more associations an object (or word or phrase) has, the more likely it is to be remembered. In the example of the man on the street above, we are likely to remember him because of the associations between him and our spoken interaction, because we shook his hand, moved to the left to let him pass, and so on. We are less likely to recall a specific tree in the area because it played no particular role in our experience. We are also less likely to remember a conversation between the two woman who passed by after we shook the man's hand.
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