Transcript Semantics in Reading Japanese

Semantics in Japanese Kanji
山
やま
火山
[kazan]
volcano
yama
登山
[tozan]
climbing
Kanji
• Around 50 000 kanji
• 5th century from China
• 3000 in daily usage
• 200 kanji account 50 %
• 1000 kanji 90 %
• 2000 kanji 99%
• Varying pronunciations due to historical reasons:
– on-yomi (chinese reading)
– kun-yomi (japanese reading)
下
o-, kuda-, sa-, shita, shimo (kun)
ka, ge (on)
= under, lower, down, inner, inferior, latter half
下 shita/shimo =under, down, below
下 moto
= under
…下 ...ka
below...
(-> 影響下
= under the influence)
下りる oriru
下ろす orosu
= descend, get down
= take/put down
= under...,
下さい Kudasai = give to me, grant to
me
下さる kudasaru = give, grant, bestow
下がる sagaru
down
下げる sageru
move back
下町
下着
靴下
shitamachi
shitagi
kutsushita
下院
下記
下部
kain = Lower House (+House)
kaki = below-mentioned (+describe)
kabu = lower part (+part)
下落
下品
geraku = fall, degradation (+fall)
gehin = vulgar, unrefined (+quality)
= downtown (+town)
= underwear (+wear)
= socks (shoe+)
下半期 shitahanki = latter half year
(+half+period)
下旬
gejun = last ten days (+ tendays)
= hang down(vi), come
= hang(vt), lower,
*下手
heta = unskillful, poor at (+hand)
Japan
[nihon]
日本語
language
word
日本
[-go]
日
本
語
[kataru]
語る
[nichi], [jitsu]
[-ka], [hi]
sun, day
月曜日
日曜日
休日
*今日
to talk
hon (-bon, -pon)
moto
book,
origin, root, base,
true, real, this,
slender obj.
Japanese
言
igen, kon
Nihon-go
吾
吾が
I, my me
言う
言葉
言語
伝言…
Two sets of syllabary characters
Hiragana ひらがな
Katakana カタカナ
-
•
•
Transformed originally from Kanji
in the 9th century
Used:
– to represent readings of Kanji
– to teach new Kanji
– to represent grammatical features
(particles, auxiliary verbs and the
inflections of words)
•
Correspondent to hiragana (46
moras)
Used
–
–
–
in foreign names
in loan words
in onomatopoemic words
[kan-ji]
[te-ki-su-to]
[ko-no]
[hi-ra-ga-na]
text
this
このテキストは漢字とひらがなと
[wa]
topic particle
[to]
and
カタカナで書いてある。
[ka-ta-ka-na]
[de]
by
[ka-i-te a-ru]
is written
Previously held believe in reading
Japanese
山
やま
yama
Naming Kanji slower than Hiragana
Feldman & Turvey (1980)
• Color words usually are written in Kanji
 frequency effect predicts that Kanji naming faster
黒
緑
茶色
灰色
朱色
栗色
kuro
midori
chairo
haiiro
shuiro
kuriiro
Kana was named faster
Kanji -> lexicon -> phonology?
くろ
みどり
ちゃいろ
はいいろ
しゅいろ
くりいろ
Saito (1981)
- abstract -
• Reading-out task:
• Kana words were read out faster than Kanji words
• Silent reading:
• Kanji were judged faster than Kana.
Kanji words easier to identify than
Katakana words
(Yamada, Mitarai & Yoshida, 1991)
****
新聞配達
****
1s
30ms
response
Tachistoscopic study
****
エアコン
エアコン
****
1-4 characters
kanji/katakana
word/non-word
-
Kanji words and their constituent characters were identified
faster than katakana words of same lenght
-
The effect of script type disappeared in non-word condition
 Not complexity but inferability
Whole word identification
Kanji
Constituent word identification
Katakana
Kanji
Katakana
2
4
2
4
2
4
2
4
Word
.80
.53
.38
.41
Word
82.7
64.2
46.1
45.5
Nonword
.02
.00
.09
.00
Nonword
31.0
13.3
30.4
15.1
Vocal inference only in Kana
Kimura (1984)
Synonymity judgement of pairs of words in
1) Kanji
2) Hiragana,
with or without concurrent articulation (nro 1-5)
CRITICS (Leong & Tamaoka, 1995)
- Unfamiliarity of seeing words in
Hiragana
- Homonyms in Hiragana (7 of 30
pairs)
-esim. kyoukai =church, association
or border
ichi, ni, san, yon, go,
ichi, ni, san, yon,
go, ichi, ni, san,
yon, go, ...
結果 ー 実験
けっか ー じっけん
Semantics and phonological
access
Yamada (1998)
1) Naming
かわ -> kawa
faster than
川 -> kawa
2) Translation
川 -> river
faster than
かわ ->
river
Reading Kanji in lexical and semantic level:
semantics, ortography and phonology
(Morita & Tamaoka)
1) Lexical decision task
"To respond as quickly and as accurately as possible deciding if the item was
correct japanese two-kanji compound word
2) Proofreading:
" to decide as accurately as possible if the words in the sentence were correct"
in phonology: "if you find nonword in the sentence please press the button as
soon as possible"
3) Semantic decision at the sentence level
"To read by meaning and decide whether the words in the sentence were
correct/misspelling (in phonology)"
Ortography of Kanji:
Morita and Tamaoka (2001)
予約
矛約
吐約
booking, reservation
orthographically similar nonword
orthographically dissimilar nonword
Lexical decision
Proofreading
Semantic
decision
RT (ms)
Error (%)
RT (ms)
Error (%)
RT (ms)
Error (%)
Correct "Yes"
720
3.2
2506
4.6
2465
6.0
Correct "No"
similar
919
43.1
2618
55.6
2447
50.0
Correct "No"
dissimilar
821
6.5
2088
10.0
2228
4.2
p<.005
p<.005
p<.01
p<.001
p<.005
p<.001
Semantics of Kanji:
Morita and Tamaoka (2001)
残額
余額
乱額
[zan-gaku] = The money left over (real word)
semantically similar nonword (余~残= left over)
semantically dissimilar nonword (乱 = disorder)
Lexical decision
Proofreading
Semantic decision
RT (ms)
Error (%)
RT (ms)
Error (%)
RT (ms)
Error (%)
Correct "Yes" 710
4.2
2385
1.4
2443
6.9
Correct "No"
similar
859
18.5
2292
38.0
2500
14.8
Correct "No"
dissimilar
792
6.0
2402
9.8
2195
1.9
p<.001
p<.001
p<.005
p<.001
p<.05
p<.001
Phonology of Kanji:
Morita and Tamaoka (2002)
規則
基則
想則
[kisoku] = rule regulation (real word)
pseudo-homophone (nonword)
[sou-soku] phonetically dissimilar (nonword)
Lexical decision
Proofreading
Semantic
decision
"no"
RT (ms)
Error (%)
RT (ms)
Error
(%)
RT (ms)
Error (%)
Pseudohomophone
s
842
9.4
2066
8.3
1955
7.7
Nonwords
802
6.2
2130
12.0
2167
3.6
p <.10
p<.05
non
non
p < .01
p<.05
Reaction times:
Comparison of 3 studies
Experiment 1: Lexical decision
950
Correct "Yes"
900
Correct "No" (similar)
850
Correct "No" (dissimilar)
800
750
700
650
600
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
Experiment 2: Proofreading
2700
2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
2100
2000
1900
Experiment 3: Semantic decision
2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
2100
2000
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
1900
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
Error rates (%)
Comparison of 3 studies
Experiment 1: Lexical decision
50,0
Correct "Yes"
40,0
Correct "No" (similar)
30,0
Correct "No" (dissimilar)
20,0
10,0
0,0
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
Experiment 2: Proofreading
Experiment 3: Semantic decision
60,0
60,0
50,0
50,0
40,0
40,0
30,0
30,0
20,0
20,0
10,0
10,0
0,0
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
0,0
Ortography
Semantics
Phonology
Not only semantics
• Leong & Tamaoka (1995)
” kanji are not always accessed directly
through the visual or lexical route
• difficult/rare kanji may be processed via phonetic
recoding
• chlidren and less skilled readers
– more influence of concurrent articulation
Another story
• Parallel processing of semantics and
phonology
• For example:
Phonologically mediated access to meaning for Kanji: Is a rows still
a rose in Japanese Kanji?
(Wydell, Patterson and Humphreys, 1993)
Parafoveal view
What can be extracted from paravovea in natural reading?
•
•
•
•
•
Word length information (Rayner, Fischer, & Pollatsek, 1998)
Orthographic features (Beauvillain & Doré, 1998)
Frequency (Kennedy, 1998; 2000; Hyönä & Bertram, 2004)
Phonology
Semantics
Text features
Readers skills
Script type
Semantics and parafoveal view in
Japanese
- The role of semantics in reading Kanji
- Meaning entities
- High information density
Semantic influence from parafoveal kanji?
Experimental setting
Semantics
Ortography
REeading and
meaning
Identical
赤
+
+
[aka]
red
semantically
similar
血
色
歩
+
-
[chi] blood
[iro]color
-
+
[aru(ku)]
[ho] walk
気
-
-
[ki] spirit
Ortographic
ally similar
control word
Boundary technique
赤になった。
1) そしてその花は赤になった。
red red
2) そしてその花は血になった。
blood
赤になった。
red
赤になった。
3) そしてその花は歩になった。
walkred
4) そしてその花は気になった。
spirit
赤になった。
red
Then that flower became red.
Important features
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Natural reading condition
Frequency (word/character?)
Complexity
Number of strokes
Number of constituents
Familiarity and frequency
Age of Acquisition
Imageability
Reader skills
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Feldman, L.B. & Turvey, M.T. (1980). Words written in kana are named faster than the same
words written in kanji. Language and Speed 23, 141-147 (abstract only)
Flores d'Arcais, G. B. & Saito, H. (1993). Lexical decomposition of complex Kanji characters in
Japanese readers. Psychological Research, 55, 52-63.
Flores d'Arcais, G. B., Saito, H., & Kawakami, M. (1995). Phonological and semantic activation in
reading kanji characters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition,
21, 34-42.
Kess, J. F. & Miyamoto, T. (1997). Accessing the japanese mental dictionary through the japanese
writing system. ???
Kimura, Y. (1984). Concurrent vocal interference: Its effect on kana and kanji, Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 36 A, 117-131.
Leong, C. K. & Tamaoka, K. (1995). Use of phonological information in processingkanji and
katakana by skilled and less skilled Japanese readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary
Journal, 7, 377-393.
Saito, H. (1981). Japanese Journal of Psychology, 52, 266-273, in japanese (abstract only).
Yamada (1998). The time course of semantic and phonological access in naming kanji and kana
words. Reading and Writing: an Interdisciplinary journal, 10, 425-437.
Yamada, J. Japanese kanji as a semantically based orthography. Psychological reports, 84, 637642)