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Abstract

This study investigates the speeds and accuracies of logographic and alphabetic
word processing across Chinese and English native speakers, presenting stimuli in
phonemically familiar scripts for each language group. Online tasks utilised rapid
serial visual presentation to assess the minimum necessary time required for
Chinese adults to identify single Chinese characters and Pinyin syllables, and for
English adults to process single words. Alphabetic nonwords were also assessed for
both language groups to determine potential differences in phonetic decoding and
direct lexical access. Test procedures utilised an adaptive speed algorithm to
identify subjects’ unique processing capabilities with maximum measurement
precision. English participants demonstrated the highest average speeds and
accuracies, and exhibited efficient dual use of phonological and lexical networks.
Chinese subjects’ alphabetic speeds were found to be half that of English results on
average, and outcomes indicated strong evidence for Chinese subjects’ processing
of alphabetic words as a direct grapheme-to-phoneme system. Heightened access
to lexical processing was found in Chinese participants reporting advanced English
proficiency, implicating English as a factor affecting cortical processing in
Romanised Chinese reading. Disparities between speeds and accuracies in
meaningful and nonword Pinyin processing was also found to be highly correlated
with accelerated performance in Chinese character reading, further suggesting a
complex inter-developmental relationship between logographic and alphabetic
scripts.

Course: Applied Linguistics and TESOL (DL) - MA - C2023

Date Deposited: 2022-09-06

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14010.html