The role of phonology in reading Japanese: Or why I don’t hear myself when reading Japanese

Abstract

Based on the phenomenal experience that when I read Japanese I don't hear ‘inner speech’, I suggest that the role of phonology may be more limited when reading text in Japanese than in English. Although this possibility has been suggested by others, I argue for somewhat different sources of this reduced role. Specifically, I propose that the greater visual discriminability of kanji words under degraded conditions, and the less important role of word order as a syntactic cue are likely to be the key factors. Relevant literature is reviewed, and directions for future research are suggested.