Logographeme Boundedness Effect on the Choice of Writing Units of Different Grain Size – A Developmental Study
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Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong, SAR China
Background
Learning to read and write Chinese characters is usually considered difficult because the relations between phonology and orthography in Chinese is not consistent. Each Chinese character is a compilation of strokes organized in a rectangular construction. More complex characters can usually be broken down into stroke clusters, called logographemes and radicals, that frequently occur in other different characters. Previous studies have reported the use of strokes, logographemes and radicals as processing units in Chinese character writing among adults (e.g. Law & Leung, 2000; Han, Zhang, Shu & Bi, 2007) and among children (Lau, Ha, & Law, 2016). It is unclear, however, what factors would affect people’s choice of graphemic units of different grain size in writing. In the current study, we examine the effect of boundedness of logographemes on Chinese character writing among children.
Method
Participants. Altogether 56 grade 5 children (mean age= 11;4) were recruited from three ordinary mainstream primary school in Beijing. All children were native Mandarin speakers and received education in Beijing since kindergarten. They were all assessed to have normal non-verbal intelligence, visual memory, visual spatial perceptual, visual motor coordination and Chinese reading abilities.
Stimuli. A total of 60 pseudo-characters were constructed, each containing a simple high frequency semantic radical and a phonetic radical that consists of two logographemes. Half of the logographemes were free standing simple characters and the other half were bound logographemes.
Task. Each participant was tested individually in a quiet room. In each trial, each participant was instructed to copy a target pseudo-character using a stylus pen on a 7-inch tablet (Quad-core with 2.20 GHz processors, resolution of 1820x1200, refresh rate of 60 Hz) running Android 4.1.1.
The elapsed time and the coordinates each time the stylus pen left / touched the tablet screen were recorded. The durations and distance travelled by the stylus between successive strokes located at the logographeme boundaries, radical boundaries and non-boundaries are calculated accordingly.
Results
Results of ANCOVA revealed that after controlled for distance travelled by the stylus, inter-stroke intervals (ISI) at the radical boundaries are significantly longer than ISI at the logographeme boundaries, which in turn are significantly longer than ISI at the non-boundaries (p < .001). Besides, significant interactions between logographeme effect and radical effect was observed (p < .05). Results of post-hoc analyses revealed that free logographeme boundaries ISI is comparable with the radical boundaries ISI while bound logographeme boundaries ISI is shorter than radical boundaries ISI (p< .01).
Discussion
The longer ISIs at the radical boundaries and the logographeme boundaries than the non-boundaries are likely attributed to the result of the retrieval and planning of the successive radicals and/or logographemes in the writing process (Kandel, Spinelli, Tremblay, Guerassimovitch, & Alvaredz, 2012; Lau, et al., 2016). The logographeme boundedness effect suggested that children’s choice of writing units of different grain sizes is affected by the lexicality or familiarity of the units. Theoretical and educational implications will be discussed.
References
Kandel, S., Spinelli, E., Tremblay, A., Guerassimovitch, H., & Alvarez, C.J. (2012). Processing prefixes and suffixes in handwriting production. Acta Psychologica, 140, 187-195.
Lau, D.K.-Y., Ha, W.W.T., & Law, A.H.S. (2016). Functional processing units in writing Chinese – a developmental study. Frontiers in Psychology Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting.
Law, S.P. & Leung, M.T. (2000). Structural representations of characters in Chinese writing: Evidence from a case of acquired dysgraphia. Psychologia, 43, 67–83.
Leung, M.T. & Lee, A. (2002). The Hong Kong corpus of primary school characters (HKCPSC). Paper presented at the 9th meeting of the International Clinical Phonetic and Linguistic Association, Hong Kong.
Han Z.-Z., Zhang Y.-M., Shu H., Bi Y.-C. (2007). The orthographic buffer in writing Chinese characters: evidence from a dysgraphic patient. Cognitive Neuropsychology. 24, 431–450
Keywords:
Chinese writing,
Logographemes,
Lexical Processing,
Writing development,
Writing
Conference:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017.
Presentation Type:
poster presentation
Topic:
Consider for student award
Citation:
Chu
S and
Lau
D
(2019). Logographeme Boundedness Effect on the Choice of Writing Units of Different Grain Size – A Developmental Study.
Conference Abstract:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00066
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Received:
21 Apr 2017;
Published Online:
25 Jan 2019.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Dustin Kai-Yan Lau, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong, SAR China, dustin.lau@polyu.edu.hk