Organizer: Mary S. Erbaugh, University of Oregon
Chair and Discussant: J. Marshall Unger, University of Maryland
Ovid J. L. Tzeng, National Chung Cheng University; Daisy L. Hung, Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, San Diego
Many cognitive psychologists and reading specialists are fascinated by the recent surge of data which suggest that reading in different written languages may engage different cognitive operations. These data immediately prompt a renewed interest in the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. However, under a tighter scrutiny, much of the data and their implication for the hypothesis may be rejected on methodological grounds. Moreover, scriptal effects are often inferred from the results of comparisons which in fact tap two very different aspects of the reading process, due exactly to the scriptal differences.
It is argued here that similarities, rather than differences, are theoretically more interesting and important in the study of comparative reading across different written languages. Given the great possibility for variation in the surface forms (e.g. logographic, syllabary, and alphabetic), one has to be impressed by the commonality of the reading processes across different scripts. It is the intention of the present paper to outline the theoretical constraints in the construction of a general reading model for all written languages.
Richard A. Horodeck, Cornell University
The popular perception of Chinese writing is that it is 'ideographic,' meaning that the symbols used to write Chinese (called 'kanji' in Japanese) stand for meanings, not sounds, and therefore are designed and employed in ways fundamentally different from the symbols in most other writing systems. Why this idea is popular, and whether or not it is true, are the subjects of this research.
The claim that kanji are 'ideographic' is tested in two ways. First, the historical development of kanji as a symbol system is examined, and it is shown that kanji, on the whole are more a phonemic than a morphemic representation of language. The acts of reading and writing kanji are then examined. Kanji, it can be shown, consistently provide users with better clues to sound than to meaning. 'Speech recoding,' furthermore, seems to play at least some role in manipulating any type of script. The likelihood that kanji function as 'ideographs' for modern day users is therefore small. Whether kanji actually do function as 'ideographs' is then tested empirically by examining the reading and writing habits of native speakers of Japanese.
In the writing study, analysis is made of 585 kanji errors collected from spontaneously written prose. The number of errors that are clearly meaning based is minuscule; furthermore, sound based errors outnumber meaning based ones more than 20:1. These data convincingly refute the hypothesis that meanings trigger kanji when Japanese write.
In the reading study, the ability of 219 subjects to spot kanji errors embedded in 60 newspaper headlines is measured. Readers regularly fail to notice kanji whose meanings are wrong, and ignore such errors significantly more often when the sound of an error matches that of the proper kanji for the context. These data convincingly refute the hypothesis that kanji trigger only meanings when Japanese read.
The results of these studies are shown to have significance for linguists involved in language teaching, orthography design, and cognitive theories of reading and writing.
Eleanor H. Jorden, Cornell University
In the pedagogical paradigm of many Japanese language instructors, the severe memory task posed by the necessity to learn countless Chinese characters and the conviction that reading Japanese is ultimately to be equated with knowledge of those characters have resulted in concentrating on that task with corresponding reduced emphasis on the more basic problem faced by the foreigner-that of learning the language. How many students attempt to assess their language skill in terms of a kanji count; and it is not unusual to hear a Japanese language course or examination identified by the number of kanji it covers, although nobody seems to bother to explain what is meant by 'covering a kanji.' The result of this approach is the creation of decoders-of 'kanji hoppers'- rather than readers.
Decoders look at a Japanese passage by hopping from kanji to kanji, relegating accompanying kana to a position of inferior significance. They note the kana, of course, but do not let its specific signals interfere with what may seem like more immediately obvious relationships among the kanji involved. Far from subvocalizing in Japanese, American decoders are more apt to transfer immediately to English as they proceed through a passage and to identify specific symbols as, for example, 'the kanji for "child",' 'the kanji for "go",' etc., as if kanji had eiyomi along with kunyomi and onyomi.
In the process of reading, the native Japanese reader also focuses on kanji, but with immediate absorption of the intervening kana and recognition of their significance. Those kana are never ignored; they must make sense grammatically. Empirical data show that kanji errors tend to be glossed over by the native Japanese reader as long as the incorrect character is one that would sound right in the given context. This gives clear indication that true reading involves subvocalization, and the subvocalization makes sense and delivers the message to those who know the language. Such knowledge permits crucially important prediction as to what probably follows within a context, resulting in rapid reading and extended eye voice span. But the foreigner who develops proficiency mainly as a reader of kanji flash cards rarely enjoys a facility to read with true understanding. In coping with more advanced texts, this kind of approach can result in serious difficulty in handling discourse and in following an argument.
Our empirical data argue for foreign students to begin their reading with material whose structure and vocabulary are already familiar through study of the spoken language. With proper orientation they can begin to read (not decode) even at the most elementary level, and can proceed to develop reading fluency and prediction capability that leads to accurate comprehension on a discourse level. If undertaken, translation of written Japanese, a separate task, will also be meaningful, even to those who know no Japanese.
Scott McGinnis, University of Maryland
There has been some insightful research over the past decade investigating aspects of the reading process for learners of Chinese as a foreign/second language. Simultaneously, a sector of the Chinese language teaching community has been increasingly influential in the promotion of the development of reading strategies from the very beginning level of Chinese language study. However, what has been largely neglected is a response to two basic questions: (1) how much do our students really want to learn to read and write Chinese; and (2) how do our students actually learn to read and write, particularly at the earliest stages of study.
In response to the first query, this paper will provide statistical evidence from a variety of university level academic settings documenting that the majority of students at the beginning and intermediate levels in fact are primarily, and often even exclusively, interested in the development of speaking and listening skills. Such an aural/oral orientation will be further documented as being somewhat at odds with the more balanced four skill approach advocated at least in spirit by many Chinese language teachers. In an attempt to answer the second question, a more ethnographic approach was employed. Self assessment forms were distributed to approximately 30 first year Chinese students enrolled in a summer immersion program. The results of these surveys reveal that despite explicit classroom introduction of linguistically based character analyses and extensive exercise activity designed to facilitate acquisition of such character structure knowledge, a large number of students rely instead on strategies which may be described as highly idiosyncratic and thoroughly inconsistent with the approaches introduced by instructors.
The conclusion is that whatever the overall status of the "ideographic myth" in Chinese scholarship, there are as well two potentially more pernicious myths adhered to by many Chinese language students-the "non necessity myth" and the "rugged individualist myth." The former states that Chinese orthography will not be of any potential significant value in the life of the Chinese language learner. The latter states that reliance on personal learning "tricks" will prove more effective in the acquisition of reading and writing skills than any linguistically based or teacher propounded methods. In their opposition to the Chinese cultural traditions of the long purported superiority of the written over the spoken word and the supreme intellectual authority of the teacher, these myths are symptomatic of cross cultural conflicts with serious implications for how we conduct Chinese language education in this country.
Would you like to return to the Interarea, Library, & Teaching Table of Contents? Choose another area?