Chinese Radical Detection Also Depends on Linguistic Role

Abstract

This study tests whether the linguistic role of a character in Chinese text affects detection of its constituent radicals. Linguistic role or status of an embedding context (e.g., word) has been shown to affect detection of embedded constituent units (e.g., letters) when reading alphabetic texts. Given significant differences between alphabetic and logographic systems such as English and Chinese, respectively, it is not clear whether the embedding linguistic role has a similar influence on constituent unit detection in Chinese. Findings here reveal that the linguistic role of the embedding context in Chinese contributes significantly to constituent detection. The outcome is consistent with the structural hypothesis, which posits that during reading, the prominence of linguistic units rapidly shifts from items contributing to structure to those that contribute meaning. Of note, the present study shows that this shifting importance of linguistic units applies to logographic as well as alphabetic systems.