Semantics in Japanese KanjiSemantics in Japanese Kanji

山

yama

やま

登山[tozan]

climbing

火山[kazan]

volcano

KanjiKanji• 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 = under..., below...(-> 影響下 = under the influence)

下りる oriru = descend, get down下ろす orosu = take/put down

下さい Kudasai = give to me, grant to me

下さる kudasaru = give, grant, bestow

下がる sagaru = hang down(vi), come down

下げる sageru = hang(vt), lower, move back

下町 shitamachi = downtown (+town)

下着 shitagi = underwear (+wear)

靴下 kutsushita = socks (shoe+)

下院 kain = Lower House (+House)

下記 kaki = below-mentioned (+describe)

下部 kabu = lower part (+part)

下落 geraku = fall, degradation (+fall)

下品 gehin = vulgar, unrefined (+quality)

下半期 shitahanki = latter half year

(+half+period)

下旬 gejun = last ten days (+ tendays)

* 下手 heta = unskillful, poor at (+hand)

日本語

日本

本日 語

Nihon-goJapanese

[nichi], [jitsu]

[-ka], [hi]

[-go]

language

word

sun, day

hon (-bon, -pon)

moto

月曜日日曜日休日

* 今日

book,

origin, root, base,

true, real, this,

slender obj.

Japan

言

i-

gen, kon

語る

[nihon]

[kataru]

to talk

吾

吾がI, my me

言う言葉言語

伝言…

Two sets of syllabary charactersTwo sets of syllabary characters

Hiragana 　ひらがな- 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)

Katakana カタカナ• Correspondent to hiragana (46

moras)

• Used– in foreign names– in loan words– in onomatopoemic words

このテキストは漢字とひらがなと

カタカナで書いてある。

[ko-no]this

[te-ki-su-to]text

[kan-ji]

[hi-ra-ga-na]

[ka-ta-ka-na][ka-i-te a-ru]

is written

[wa]topic particle

[de]by

[to]and

山

やま　 yama

Previously held believe in reading Japanese

Naming Kanji slower than HiraganaNaming Kanji slower than HiraganaFeldman & Turvey (1980)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

くろみどり

ちゃいろはいいろしゅいろくりいろ

kuro

midori

chairo

haiiro

shuiro

kuriiro

Kana was named fasterKanji -> lexicon -> phonology?

Saito (1981)Saito (1981)- abstract -- 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 Kanji words easier to identify than Katakana wordsKatakana words

(Yamada, Mitarai & Yoshida, 1991)(Yamada, Mitarai & Yoshida, 1991)

**** ****

新聞配達 エアコン

****

1s

30ms

response

Tachistoscopic study

1-4 characters

kanji/katakana

word/non-wordエアコン

****

Kanji Katakana

2 4 2 4

Word .80 .53 .38 .41

Non-word

.02 .00 .09 .00

Kanji Katakana

2 4 2 4

Word 82.7 64.2 46.1 45.5

Non-word

31.0 13.3 30.4 15.1

Whole word identification Whole word identification Constituent word identificationConstituent word identification

- 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

Vocal inference only in KanaVocal inference only in KanaKimura (1984)Kimura (1984)

Synonymity judgement of pairs of words in

1) Kanji

2) Hiragana,

with or without concurrent articulation (nro 1-5)

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

CRITICS (Leong & Tamaoka, 1995)- Unfamiliarity of seeing words in

Hiragana - Homonyms in Hiragana (7 of 30

pairs) -esim. kyoukai =church, association or border

Semantics and phonological Semantics and phonological access access

Yamada (1998)Yamada (1998)

かわ -> kawa 川 -> kawa

かわ -> river川 -> river

1) Naming

2) Translation

faster than

faster than

Reading Kanji in lexical and semantic level:Reading Kanji in lexical and semantic level:semantics, ortography and phonologysemantics, ortography and phonology

(Morita & Tamaoka)(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)

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

予約　 booking, reservation矛約 orthographically similar nonword 吐約 orthographically dissimilar nonword

p<.005 p<.005 p<.01 p<.001 p<.005 p<.001

Semantics of Kanji:Morita and Tamaoka (2001)

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

残額　 [zan-gaku] = The money left over (real word)

余額 semantically similar nonword ( 余 ~ 残 = left over)

乱額 semantically dissimilar nonword ( 乱 = disorder)

p<.005 p<.001 p<.05 p<.001 p<.001 p<.001

Phonology of Kanji:Morita and Tamaoka (2002)

Lexical decision Proofreading Semantic decision

"no" RT (ms) Error (%) RT (ms) Error (%)

RT (ms) Error (%)

Pseudo-homophones

842 9.4 2066 8.3 1955 7.7

Nonwords 802 6.2 2130 12.0 2167 3.6

規則 [kisoku] = rule regulation (real word)

基則 pseudo-homophone (nonword)

想則 [sou-soku] phonetically dissimilar (nonword)

p <.10 p<.05 non non p < .01 p<.05

Reaction times:Comparison of 3 studies

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

Ortography Semantics Phonology

Correct "Yes"

Correct "No" (similar)

Correct "No" (dissimilar)

1900

2000

2100

2200

2300

2400

2500

2600

Ortography Semantics Phonology

190020002100220023002400250026002700

Ortography Semantics Phonology

Experiment 1: Lexical decision

Experiment 2: Proofreading Experiment 3: Semantic decision

Error rates (%)Comparison of 3 studies

0,0

10,0

20,0

30,0

40,0

50,0

Ortography Semantics Phonology

Correct "Yes"

Correct "No" (similar)

Correct "No" (dissimilar)

0,0

10,0

20,0

30,0

40,0

50,0

60,0

Ortography Semantics Phonology

0,0

10,0

20,0

30,0

40,0

50,0

60,0

Ortography Semantics Phonology

Experiment 1: Lexical decision

Experiment 2: Proofreading Experiment 3: Semantic decision

Not only semanticsNot 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 storyAnother 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 viewParafoveal viewWhat 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 skillsScript type

Semantics and parafoveal view in Semantics and parafoveal view in JapaneseJapanese

- The role of semantics in reading Kanji- Meaning entities

- High information density

Semantic influence from parafoveal kanji?

Experimental settingExperimental settingSemantics Ortography REeading and

meaning

Identical 赤 + + [aka]

red

semantically similar

血色

+ - [chi] blood

[iro]color

Ortographically similar

歩 - + [aru(ku)]

[ho] walk

control word 気 - - [ki] spirit

Boundary techniqueBoundary technique

1) そしてその花は赤になった。 red

　2) そしてその花は血になった。 blood

3) そしてその花は歩になった。 walk

4) そしてその花は気になった。 spirit

Then that flower became red.

赤になった。 red

赤になった。 red

赤になった。 red

赤になった。 red

Important featuresImportant features

– Natural reading condition– Frequency (word/character?) – Complexity– Number of strokes– Number of constituents– Familiarity and frequency 　– Age of Acquisition– Imageability– Reader skills

ReferencesReferences

• 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, 637-642)