Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-xq9c7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-15T10:11:05.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Children's understanding of the formal and functional characteristics of written Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Lily Chan  and
Terezinha Nunes
Lily Chan*
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Terezinha Nunes
Affiliation:
Institute of Education, University of London
*
Hong Kong Institute of Education, Room 4266, Block D2, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong. Email: lchan.ecs@ied.edu.hk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Chinese script is often viewed as an exception to the processes of language learning in that it is presumed to be learned by rote. However, recent psycholinguistic investigations describing the formal and functional constraints of Chinese script have offered a new direction for a cognitive analysis of its acquisition. We investigated children's understanding of the formal and functional aspects of written Chinese in a task of judgment of orthographic acceptability and a creative spelling task. The formal constraint we examined was the fixed position of stroke patterns and their function as either a semantic radical (giving a clue to meaning) or a phonological component (giving a clue to pronunciation). The children (aged 4 to 9) attended either kindergarten or primary school in Hong Kong. Our results indicated that 6-year-olds could already use the positional rule to reject nonwords (which violate the formal constraint of position) as unacceptable, whereas pseudowords (which do not violate this constraint) were judged as acceptable. Significant effects of age and orthographic acceptability were observed. The task of creative writing replicated this trend and showed that, from age 6, the children were able to use semantic radicals to represent meaning. However, a more systematic use of phonological components as a clue to pronunciation was observed only among 9-year-olds. We conclude that learning to read and write in Chinese is not simply accomplished by the rote memorization of individual characters: rather, as children progress in learning, they develop an understanding of the underlying rules of written Chinese.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 115 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chan, L. (1990). Preschool childrens understanding of Chinese writing. Unpublished masters thesis. Institute of Education, University of London.Google Scholar
Chen, Y. P. (1995). Attention and lexical decomposition in Chinese word recognition: Conjunctionsof form and position guide selective attention. Visual Cognition, 2, 235–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coltheart, M. (1978). Lexical access in a simple reading task. In Underwood, G. (Ed.), Strategies ofinformation processing. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Fei, J. C., & Sun, M. J. (1988). Exploration of the degree of radicals contribution of word meaning.Paper from the conference on Chinese Language. Beijing Language Press, in ChineseGoogle Scholar
Ferreiro, E., & Gomez Palacio, M. (1982). Analysis de las perturbacioues en elprocesso de aprendi-zaje de la lecto-escritura. Fasciculo 5: Reconsideracion delfracaso escolar inicial. Conclusions generates. Mexico: Direccion General de Educacion Especial.Google Scholar
Ferreiro, E., & Teberosky, A. (1982). Literacy before schooling. Exeter, NH: Heinemann Educa-tional Books.Google Scholar
Floras dArcais, G. B. (1992). Graphemic, phonological and semantic activation processes duringthe recognition of Chinese characters. In Chen, H. C. & Tzeng, O. J. L. (Eds.), Languageprocessing in Chinese. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Floras dArcais, G. B., Saito, H., & Kawakami, M. (1995). Phonological and semantic activationin reading kanji characters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 34–42.Google Scholar
Henderson, L., Chard, J. (1980). The readers implicit knowledge of orthographic structure. In Frith, U. (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Hoosain, R. (1991). Psycholinguistic implications for linguistic relativity: A case study of Chinese. Hillsdale, W: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hue, C. W. (1992). Recognition processes in Chinese naming. In Chen, H. C. & Tzeng, O. J. L (Eds.), Language processing in Chinese. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1993). Patterns in the mind, language and human nature. Hemel Hempstead: Har-vester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond modularity. A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Cambridge. M: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Martin, S. E. (1972). Non-alphabetic writing systems. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Mattingly, I. G. (Eds.), Language by eye and by ear. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nunes Carraher, T., & Rego, L. L. B. (1982). Understanding the alphabetic system. In Rogers, D.Sloboda, J. A. (Eds.), The acquisition of symbolic skills. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Read, C. (1971). Pre-school childrens knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Re-view, 41, 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rego, L. M. L. B. (1991). The role of early linguistic analysis in childrens reading and spelling. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Seidenberg, M. S. (1985). The time course of phonological code activation in two writing systems. Cognition, 19, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Temple, C., Nathan, R., Burris, N., & Temple, F. (1988). The beginning of writing. Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Treiman, R. (1993). Beginning to spell. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tzeng, O. J. L., & Hung, D. L. (1980). Reading in a non-alphabetic writing system. In Kava-nagh, J. F.Venezky, R. L. (Eds.), Orthography, reading and dyslexia. Baltimore: UniversityPark Press.Google Scholar
Zhou, Y. K. (1980). Precise guide to pronunciation with Chinese phonological roots. Jilin Peoples Publishing, in [Chinese]Google Scholar
Zhu, Y. P. (1987). Analysis of cuing functions of the phonetic in modem China. East China NormalUniversity, in [Chinese]Google Scholar