The Japanese Mental Lexicon : Psycholinguistics Studies of Kana and Kanji Processing

This book surveys the psycholinguistic dimensions of lexical access to the mental lexicon in Japanese, and attempts to synthesize the diversity of Japanese psycholinguistic research into the nature of written word processing in Japanese. Ten chapters focus on the nature of such psycholinguistic inquiry and its history, the structural origins of the Japanese script types and their relative frequencies, lexical access studies in kanji, the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, romaji, and mixed text processing, laterality preferences in kana/kanji processing and their implications for scientific discussions of language and cognition, evidence from eye-movement studies, the acquisition of orthographic skills by Japanese children, and a review of the implications and conclusions that arise from the contributions of such research. The text is directed at filling the need for an overview of this research because of its importance to theoretical modelling in linguistics and psychology, as well as aphasiology, mathematical and statistical linguistics, educational practices and governmental intervention in respect to language policies, and studies of linguistic and cultural history. Z 95 THE JAPANESE MENTAL LEXICON 1 Title page 3 Copyright page 4 Table of Contents 5 Preface 7 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 11 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 11 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE PSYCHOLOGY 11 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 15 THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK 18 Chapter 2. A HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE ORTHOGRAPHY 23 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 23 KANJI SCRIPT 24 Kanji History 24 Kanji Policie s 27 Kanji Frequencies 30 Diachronic Factors in Kanji Frequencies 31 Kanji in the Computer Age 36 KANA SCRIPTS 40 Chapter 3. KANJI PROCESSING 43 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 43 THE STRUCTURE OF KANJI WORDS 45 Kanji Architect ure 45 On-readings vs. Kun-readings 48 Simple Kanji vs. Complex Kanji 50 Kanji Attributes 52 PHONOLOGICAL INFORMATION IN KANJI WORDS 55 Interference from Concurrent Vocalization 61 Relevant Chinese Studies 63 Summary Conclusions 67 SEMANTIC INFORMATION IN KANJI WORDS 67 Function of Semantic Radicals 68 Interaction of Phonological and Semantic Information 71 Collocational Possibilities 73 Summary Conclusions 77 COMPOUND KANJI 78 Introduction 78 Whole-Word Access 79 Sub-Lexical Access 83 Summary Conclusions 87 KINETIC INFORMATION IN KANJI WORDS 88 FONT-TYPE INFORMATION IN PROCESSING KANJI WORDS 90 Chapter 4. ΚΑΝΑ PROCESSING 93 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 93 SYLLABARY INVENTORIES 94 PROCESSING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN KANA TYPES? 97 Katakana vs. Hiragana Vocabularies? 98 Orthographic Attributes of Katakana vs. Hiragana 101 DIRECT ACCESS FOR ΚΑΝΑ 103 THE ISSUE OF SCRIPT FAMILIARITY FOR ΚΑΝΑ 109 Script Variation 109 ScriptType Frequency 111 Addressed or Assembled Phonological Route? 113 Script Type Effects 114 Memory and Recall 118 CONCLUSIONS 120 Chapter 5. ROMAJI PROCESSING 121 ROMAJI 121 Romaji Usage 122 LI Script Transfer Effect 124 Transliteration Systems 125 Chapter 6. KANJI-KÀNA MIXED TEXTS 127 KANJI-KANA MAJIRI-BUN 127 Kana-only vs. Kanji-mixed Texts 129 NON-LINGUISTIC SYMBOLS 131 STROOPTEST RESULTS 134 CONCLUSIONS 138 Chapter 7. ACQUISITION OF ORTHOGRAPHY SKILLS 139 ORTHOGRAPHY SKILLS AND READING 139 ΚΑΝΑ ACQUISITION 141 Segmentation Skills and Script Type 143 Measuring Skilled Readers 145 KANJI ACQUISITION 148 Kanji Attributes 148 Kanji Curriculum 150 Asymmetry between Writing and Reading Abilities 153 CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS OF READING SKILLS AND READING DISABILITIES 156 Non-existence of Japanese Dyslexics? 156 Characterization of 'Reading Disabilities' 157 Implications from Studies of Other Impairments 160 CONCLUSIONS 162 Chapter 8. EYE-MOVEMENT STUDIES 163 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 163 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS IN EYE-MOVEMENT STUDIES 164 Basic Eye Movements 164 Experimental Methods 166 EYE-MOVEMENT STUDIES IN JAPANESE 168 Regular Kanji-based Texts 168 Kanji-based Texts vs. Kana-only Texts 172 Vertical Texts vs. Horizontal Texts 173 Scrolling Speed and Window Size 175 CONCLUSIONS 176 Chapter 9. LATERALITY 177 INTRODUCTION 177 DICHOTOMOUS VIEWS OF LATERALITY IN KANA/KANJI PROCESSING 179 The Origin of the Dichotomous View 179 Kana Processing 181 Kanji Processing 183 FUNCTIONAL FACTORS IN LATERALITY PREFERENCES 187 Experimental Variables 188 Examination of Tasks Involved 192 Summary Conclusions 196 CLINICAL STUDIES 196 Universality 196 Right Hemisphere Contribution 198 CONCLUSIONS 201 Chapter 10. CONCLUSIONS 203 UNIVERSALITY 203 Universal Constraints in Processing Models 204 LANGUAGE SPECIFICITY 208 Kanji 209 Kana 214 Acquisition 217 CONCLUSION 218 APPENDIX 219 INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 219 JAPANESE JOURNALS 219 JAPANESE RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS 221 REFERENCES 223 AUTHOR INDEX 265 SUBJECT INDEX 273 "This book surveys the psycholinguistic dimensions of lexical access to the mental lexicon in Japanese, and attempts to synthesize the diversity of Japanese psycholinguistic research into the nature of written word processing in Japanese. The text is directed at filling the need for an overview of this research because of its importance to theoretical modelling in linguistics and psychology, as well as aphasiology, mathematical and statistical linguistics, educational practices and governmental intervention in respect to language policies, and studies of linguistic and cultural history."--Jacket This text surveys the psycholinguistic dimensions of lexical access to the mental lexicon in Japanese, and attempts to synthesize the diversity of Japanese psycholinguistic research into the nature of written word processing in Japanese.