Kanji Words Research Articles

Basal temporal language area revisited in Japanese language with a language function density map.

We revisited the anatomo-functional characteristics of the basal temporal language area (BTLA), first described by Lüders et al. (1986), using electrical cortical stimulation (ECS) in the context of Japanese language and semantic networks. We recruited 11 patients with focal epilepsy who underwent chronic subdural electrode implantation and ECS mapping with multiple language tasks for presurgical evaluation. A semiquantitative language function density map delineated the anatomo-functional characteristics of the BTLA (66 electrodes, mean 3.8cm from the temporal tip). The ECS-induced impairment probability was higher in the following tasks, listed in a descending order: spoken-word picture matching, picture naming, Kanji word reading, paragraph reading, spoken-verbal command, and Kana word reading. The anterior fusiform gyrus (FG), adjacent anterior inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), and the anterior end where FG and ITG fuse, were characterized by stimulation-induced impairment during visual and auditory tasks requiring verbal output or not, whereas the middle FG was characterized mainly by visual input. The parahippocampal gyrus was the least impaired of the three gyri in the basal temporal area. We propose that the BTLA has a functional gradient, with the anterior part involved in amodal semantic processing and the posterior part, especially the middle FG in unimodal semantic processing.

TGT (Teams Games Tournament) Cooperative Learning Model in Kanji Courses to Improve Japanese Vocabulary Mastery

Mastering kanji is a challenge for anyone studying the Japanese language. Due to its intricate nature, many students perceive kanji as an intimidating topic. The students' struggle with comprehending kanji directly impacts their ability to understand words written in kanji. Consequently, kids lack comprehension of the reading (dokkai) due to the abundance of kanji words inside it. To tackle this issue, it is necessary to develop a pedagogical paradigm that promotes cooperation among students, enabling them to effectively overcome challenges related to kanji. The TGT (Teams Games Tournament) model is a collaborative learning model that incorporates groups consisting of 3 to 5 individuals. The research aims to investigate the extent of your proficiency in mastering the JLPT N4 kanji vocabulary prior to utilizing the TGT (Teams Game Tournament) model. What is your proficiency in learning the JLPT N4 kanji vocabulary like after utilizing the TGT (Teams Games Tournament) approach? What is the students' response to studying kanji using the TGT (Teams Games Tournament) model? The research methodology employed is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The research focused on a population of 3rd semester students, consisting of a total of 22 individuals. The data gathering methods employed in this study involved the utilization of questionnaires and interviews conducted using Google Form. Meanwhile, the data analysis technique employs descriptive statistics to assess pretest and posttest scores. The findings of this study demonstrated a notable improvement in students' proficiency of JLPT N4 kanji vocabulary after the implementation of the TGT (Teams Game Tournament) cooperative learning paradigm.

The lexical processing of Japanese collocations by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners: An experimental study by manipulating the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency.

Research on collocations has become an essential issue in L2 acquisition and cognitive psychology. Previous studies have mainly focused on phonographic languages such as English, Swedish, and German, and primarily discussed the effect of semantic transparency and translational congruency. However, these studies have lacked (1) an analysis of the interactions between presentation modalities (visual vs. auditory) and the semantic transparency and translational congruency, and (2) a discussion of an ideographic language, such as Chinese and Japanese. We conducted an experiment with 36 Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners to examine the processing of Japanese collocations. In the experiment, we manipulated the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency during a lexical judgment task. Data analysis using linear mixed-effects models revealed the following. (1) In both conditions of semantic transparency and translational congruency, the auditory presentation was associated with longer reaction times than the visual presentation. (2) In the visual presentation condition, neither semantic transparency nor translational congruency showed significant effects. (3) In the auditory presentation condition, the reaction time for collocations with high semantic transparency tended to be longer than that for collocations with medium semantic transparency and significantly longer than that for collocations with low semantic transparency. The reaction time for collocations with congruent translation was longer than that for collocations with incongruent translation. These results support the dual-route model of Japanese collocational processing by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. Our findings suggest that whether the analytic or holistic processing dominates is closely related to the learners' knowledge of Chinese and Japanese Kanji words and strongly influenced by the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency.

Contributions of processes using semantic information and character‐to‐sound correspondences to kanji word‐reading performance in Japanese primary school children

Background In opaque orthographies, such as English, children with low reading skills tend to rely more on semantic information due to their inadequate acquisition of sub-lexical knowledge. This tendency has also been reported for kanji, a non-alphabetic and opaque Japanese orthography. However, previous studies on this phenomenon have had methodological limitations, such as a small number of stimuli in reading tests and insufficient investigation of a consistency effect. This study addressed these limitations and aimed to clarify whether Japanese children with low reading accuracy are characterised by a stronger reliance on semantic information and a smaller contribution to the reading process based on character-to-sound correspondences to the kanji word-reading performance than children with high reading accuracy in reading kanji words. Methods A total of 129 Japanese students in the fifth and sixth grades participated in this study, and 11 of them had been previously diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. They read an experimenter-created list of kanji words. We tested how frequency, imageability and consistency of character-to-sound correspondences affected children's reading accuracy and error types and how the effects of these variables were modulated by reading accuracy level. Results For children with lower reading accuracy, the frequency and consistency effects on reading accuracy decreased, whereas the imageability effect was stronger. Children with low reading accuracy frequently did not respond, whereas children with high reading accuracy made word substitution and legitimate alternative reading of component (LARC) errors frequently. Conclusions The reading processing of children with low reading accuracy is characterised by a stronger reliance on semantic information and a smaller contribution of a reading process based on character-to-sound correspondences to reading performance than that of children with high reading accuracy. Reading characteristics of children with low reading accuracy might be due to their inadequate lexical and sub-word knowledge.

문장의 시각 제시 상황에서의 상급 한국인 학습자의 한자단어 처리과정 - 문장의 제약성과 두 언어의 음운 유사성을 이용한 어휘판단과제를 통해 -

본 연구에서는 상급 한국인 학습자를 대상으로 시각 제시된 일본어 문장에서의 한자 단어에 대한 의미처리에 대해, 단어 단독 제시에서 나타난 두 언어 간 음운 표상의 연결관계를 바탕으로 문장의 제약성과 음운유사성을 조작하여 어휘판단과제 실험을 통해 검토하였다. 그 결과, 문장의 제약성에 따라 2개 언어의 음운표상의 활성화 및 작용이 다르다는 점과, 단어가 단독으로 제시되었을 때와 마찬가지로 문장에서도 음운유사성에 따른 촉진효과가 나타나는 점이 시사되었다. (ⅰ) 제약성이 높은 문장의 경우, 일본어와 한국어의 음운 유사성에 따른 촉진 효과가 표면에 나타나지 않아, 무엇보다 문맥에 따른 영향을 강하게 받고 있음을 확인할 수 있었다. 이를 통해 음운 유사성이 높은 단어의 경우에는, 한국어의 음운 표상을 통해 직접적으로 개념 표상의 의미에 접근하는 것으로 추측되었다. 한편, 음운 유사성이 낮은 단어의 경우에는, 한국어와 일본어간 음운 표상의 연결은 약하지만, 문맥 정보에 따른 영향으로 두 언어간의 음운과 개념 표상의 연결을 통해 직접적으로 개념 표상에 접근 것을 추측할 수 있었다. (ⅱ) 제약성이 낮은 문장에서는 단어 단독 제시와 동일하게 두 언어의 음운 유사성에 따른 촉진 효과를 확인할 수 있었다. 이 결과는 단어 단독 제시의 경우와 동일한 의미처리 과정을 보인다는 점이 시사되었다.

Alexia and agraphia in Japanese

AbstractDissociated performance in the reading/writing of kanji (morphogram) and kana (phonogram) in alexia and agraphia in Japanese has attracted attention because kanji and kana differently convey semantics, orthography, and phonology. Although the dissociation between kanji and kana is relative, but not absolute, detailed case studies, in addition to recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies, have revealed the partially separable mechanisms of the kanji and kana writing systems. Kanji words are processed mainly, not exclusively, via the orthographic–semantic route, and kana words are processed via both orthographic–semantic and phonological routes. Pure alexia with lesions in the left medial occipital lobe and splenium shows alexia for both kanji and kana, but at the chronic stage, alexia for either kanji or kana may remain depending on the compensatory mechanism. The left occipitotemporal area is important for reading/writing. The slightly different location and extent of lesions are associated with distinct symptoms: kanji alexia with the lesion in the mid‐fusiform gyrus (visual word form area; VWFA), kana alexia with lesions posterior to VWFA, and kanji alexia with kanji agraphia with lesions lateral to VWFA. The left angular gyrus has traditionally been considered important for writing. However, it is unclear whether the crucial site is the angular gyrus or the cortical and subcortical regions adjacent to it. In neurodegenerative diseases, reading/writing abilities are differentially impaired depending on the specific distribution of neuronal degeneration in each disease. Examining the reading/writing abilities of kanji and kana can facilitate understanding of the writing system and related disorders.

The Inheritance of Korean Commen Characters to Chinese Characters and the Law of Form Variation ——Focusing on the Korean common characters used in the Korean Kanji Words of Gujin Shilin

The Inheritance of Korean Commen Characters to Chinese Characters and the Law of Form Variation ——Focusing on the Korean common characters used in the Korean Kanji Words of Gujin Shilin

Evaluation of Episodic and Lexical Metamemory and Executive Function in Healthy Older Adults

In older adults, it is important to maintain awareness of memory as well as memory performance. However, it is not clear whether the awareness of episodic and lexical memory changes with age and is related to self-evaluation of memory and executive function. Here age-related changes and the relationship between metamemory, executive function, and metamemory scale were investigated. Healthy old (n=40) and young (n=34) groups participated in this study. In the episodic memory task, participants were asked to memorize ten Kanji words and to estimate the number of words they could recall after ten minutes. In the lexical memory task, they rated the likelihood that they could write a target Kanji word written in hiragana and then wrote them down. They were also asked to complete the metamemory in adulthood(MIA) and the position stroop task. In the episodic and lexical memory and the position stroop task and MIA subscales, the performances of the younger group were significantly better than those of the older group. In the episodic memory task, there were correlations between the metamemory and MIA subscales in both groups, but in the lexical memory task, only in the old group. No correlation was found between the results of both memory tasks and the stroop test. These results suggest that older people overestimate memory performances in the episodic and lexical memory tasks and metamemory performances may be associated with self-evaluation of memory. In addition, metamemory might not be related to frontal lobe function as shown in executive function tasks.

Sustanaible Methods of Improving Kanji Learning Skills for Japanese Language Learners at Basic Level at FPT University

When learning Japanese, it can be said that the biggest barrier for new learners is learning Kanji. Different from Hiragana and Katakana, the number of Kanji characters is large. In writing, a lot of Kanji words have more than 20 strokes and even one Kanji has different ways of readings and meanings. When learning Kanji, learners must remember the typeface of the word, its pronunciation and its meaning. In order to be able to read and understand documents such as letters or newspapers and to communicate in Japanese in daily activities, the number of Kanji needed to learn can be up to 1000 words. This article is based on a variety of references on how to learn Kanji of foreign students, survey done by Japanese language students of different levels of current Kanji learning methods, thereby comparing, analyze current learning methods and propose methods to improve Kanji learning skills for Japanese learners at elementary level.

Structural Brain Network Correlated with Reading Impairment in Alzheimer’s Disease

Aim: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common age-related neurodegenerative disease and leads to dementia. AD is characterized by progressive declines in memory and, as the disease progresses, language dysfunction. Although it has been reported that AD patients show progressive aphasia, no study has examined the relationship between language functions estimated by the Standard Language Test for Aphasia (SLTA) and brain network connectivity in Japanese AD patients. If present, such a relationship would be of particular interest because Japanese speakers are accustomed to mingling ideography and phonography. Methods: 22 Japanese patients with AD who underwent 1.5-tesla MRI scan and SLTA, the scale for speech and reading impairment, participated in this study. We computed brain network connectivity metrics such as degree, betweenness centrality, and clustering coefficient, and estimated their relationships with the subscores of SLTA. Results: There was a significant negative correlation between the score for “reading aloud Kanji words” and the clustering coefficient in the left inferior temporal region, bilateral hippocampal regions, and right parietotemporal region. We also found a significant negative correlation between the score for “auditory comprehension of words” and the clustering coefficient in the left prefrontal region. No significant relationship was found between the other SLTA scores and the network metrics. Conclusions: Our data suggest relationships between reading impairments and regional brain network connectivity in Japanese patients with AD. The brain connectome may provide adjunct biological information that could improve our understanding of reading impairment.

The influence of orthography on speech production: Evidence from masked priming in word-naming and picture-naming tasks.

In a masked priming word-naming task, a facilitation due to the initial-segmental sound overlap for 2-character kanji prime-target pairs was affected by certain orthographic properties (Yoshihara, Nakayama, Verdonschot, & Hino, 2017). That is, the facilitation that was due to the initial mora overlap occurred only when the mora was the whole pronunciation of their initial kanji characters (i.e., match pairs; e.g., /ka-se.ki/- /ka-rjo.ku/). When the shared initial mora was only a part of the kanji characters' readings, however, there was no facilitation (i.e., mismatch pairs; e.g., /ha.tu-a.N/- /ha.ku-bu.tu/). In the present study, we used a masked priming picture-naming task to investigate whether the previous results were relevant only when the orthography of targets is visually presented. In Experiment 1, the main findings of our word-naming task were fully replicated in a picture-naming task. In Experiments 2 and 3, the absence of facilitation for the mismatch pairs were confirmed with a new set of stimuli. On the other hand, a significant facilitation was observed for the match pairs that shared the 2 initial morae (in Experiment 4), which was again consistent with the results of our word-naming study. These results suggest that the orthographic properties constrain the phonological expression of masked priming for kanji words across 2 tasks that are likely to differ in how phonology is retrieved. Specifically, we propose that orthography of a word is activated online and constrains the phonological encoding processes in these tasks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A Study of Pronunciation Errors in the Reading of Kanji Words in Cases with Pure Apraxia of Speech

In this study we investigated the pronunciation error patterns in Kanji words of two patients with pure apraxia of speech. We asked the patients to read aloud 80 visually presented Kanji words, half of which were homonymous and the rest non-homonymous. The words were presented at three different intervals (2, 1.5 and 1 sec.). Case A, a 68-year-old right-handed woman, produced a variety of sound errors - substitution, distortion and omission - and some errors of pitch position. Case B, a 73-year-old right-handed woman, omitted the prolonged vowels of each word, and produced many pitch errors, including pitch position errors and flattening of pitch. Each patient had different lesions in the left precentral gyrus - Case A from the posterior bank to the middle part of the left precentral gyrus, and Case B in the anterior bank and deep white matter of the left precentral gyrus. We speculated that Case A has difficulty mainly in the articulation process and vocalization, whereas Case B's deficit lies mainly in the phonation process, which relates to control of pitch and expiration.

Types of Kanji Words and Learners Strategies in Reading Contexts

Types of Kanji Words and Learners Strategies in Reading Contexts

The effects of articulatory suppression on the homophone judgments of Kanji words by Chinese learners of Japanese

The effects of articulatory suppression on the homophone judgments of Kanji words by Chinese learners of Japanese

SURVEY RESEARCH ON KANJI LEARNING STRATEGIES OF JAPANESE LEARNING STUDENTS

One of the hardest issues in learning Japanese is learning Kanji. In Japanese studies, there are more than 7000 words made up of over 2500 kanji characters. In addition, to learn Kanji words, students also need to remember all the three factors: writing, reading (‘on’ reading and ‘kun’ reading), and meaning. Therefore, Japanese learners often use multiple strategies to memorize Kanji. The survey was conducted among 123 third-year students of the Faculty of Japanese Language and Culture, University of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi to find out which methods are frequently used. In addition, this research further identifies the difference in study habits of male and female students, as well as of students with different Japanese proficiency levels (N1, N2, and N3). The research also asks students to list additional learning strategies besides the ones that were originally included in the survey. The most frequently used strategies are ‘Looking up unknown Kanji in a dictionary’, ‘Write over and over again’ and many of the most commonly used strategies are related to Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. Gender differences in study habits were found where male students mostly use visualization, while female students tend to learn by using Kanji in writing and character association. Students often use Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary when they start learning Kanji. However, the higher students’ levels are, the less Sino-Vietnamese words are used.

Word Frequency Effect in Lexical Decision Task: Evidence from Khalkha Mongolian

In experimental psycholinguistics, one clue into the architecture of lexical memory comes from the presence of robust frequency effects in lexical decision task (LDT), in which subjects judge whether a written stimulus is a real word or a nonword, and processing complexity is measured by reaction time (RT). For example, in LDT the visual word recognition process is facilitated (or inhibited) by word frequency as measured from the representative corpus. Our study verifies the word frequency effect in standard (“yes/no task”) LDT performed by Khalkha Mongolian subjects. The results showed strong weight of word frequency as RTs predictor (R2 = .631, F (1, 28) = 50.57, p < .000, β = .802, t = 7.111, p < .000). Our experimental results also correspond to experimental findings on word frequency effects for Japanese Katakana (syllabic) and Kanji (logographic) words in standard LDT. Such lexical decision “script moderation” could be the actual clue for further LDT experiments (e. g., relatively “deep” Mongolian script vs. “shallow” Cyrillic Mongolian)

Word superiority effect in Kanji words

Word superiority effect in Kanji words

Homophone Advantage in Sentence Acceptability Judgment: An Experiment with Japanese Kanji Words and Articulatory Suppression Technique

The purpose of this study was to examine the role and nature of phonology in silent reading of Japanese sentences. An experiment was conducted using a Japanese sentence acceptability judgment task. One important finding was that participants more rapidly rejected homophonic sentences in which one two-kanji compound word was replaced by its homophone word than non-homophonic sentences. In the latter, the word was replaced by a non-homophone spelling control; that is, we observed a homophone advantage. Participants were able to identify the correct word easily through foil's homophonic mate. This indicated that activated phonology played a role in the Japanese sentence acceptability judgment task and it contributed to the error detection/recovery process. Another important finding was that the homophone facilitation effect remained under articulatory suppression. It confirmed that phonology was activated at an early stage as abstract, non-articulatory phonology.

The Kanji Learning Website for EPA Care Worker Candidates, "Kaigo-no-Kanji Supporter” (Learning Support for Kanji Vocabulary in the Caregiving Field)

Care worker candidates under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) must pass the Japanese State Examination for Certified Care Workers within four years to continue working in Japan. The Japanese language, especially kanji (Chinese characters), used in the examinations is a significant barrier for the candidates and there is a need for Japanese language learning support designed specifically to focus on kanji used in the examinations. The Authors developed “Kaigo-no-Kanji Supporter” (Learning Support Website for Kanji Vocabulary in the Caregiving Field) and “Kaigo-no-Kotoba Search" – Online Search Tool for Specialized Vocabulary in the Caregiving Field. “Kaigo-no-Kanji Supporter” is a website to learn kanji, two-kanji morphemes and technical terms used in the caregiving field interrelatedly. This website is a useful study tool for learning the technical terms that are likely to appear in the State Examination for Care Workers. This site consists of information in three main parts:1) Tan-kanji (single kanji) that frequently come up in the exam, 2) Two-kanji morphemes that include single kanji terms, and 3) Technical terms that include two-kanji words. English and Indonesian translations for each single kanji and two-kanji words, as well as technical terms, are provided. The other learning website, “Kaigo-no-Kotoba Search” has been designed so that candidates can look up words using kanji, hiragana, katakana, English and Indonesian. This means that if a candidate comes across a word they do not understand, there are multiple ways for them to look up the word and higher possibility they will find the meaning. We have evaluated the actual usage of this website from two perspectives – through access data analysis and through interviews with website users. According to these resources, we found that the website is used in various ways both online and offline.

Single and compound logographic Kanji words elicit distinct early neurophysiological responses: ERP evidence from fluent and naïve Kanji readers

Abstract While the N170 to printed words in alphabetic scripts is consistently left-lateralized, the available evidence on logographic scripts is much less consistent. Here, we examined the extent to which use of single-character (e.g.,目) versus compound-character (e.g., 目玉) words in a logographic script could account for differences in the laterality of early neural responses in fluent readers. Participants included both fluent Kanji readers (n = 17) as well as naive Kanji readers (n = 19), in order to separate out differences due to low-level physical differences between stimuli. While fluent Kanji readers showed a larger amplitude N170 overall relative to naive readers, this expertise effect was bilateral, rather than left-lateralized as is common with alphabetic scripts. Trend-level differences in laterality were observed at the earlier P1 response, which has not been extensively examined in previous studies of logographic script reading, with naive readers only tending to show right-lateralization across both single- and compound-character Kanji words. Both participant groups differentiated single and compound Kanji words, but contrary to predictions these effects were bilateral and evident during different stages of processing in each group. Among naive readers, compound Kanji elicited a larger amplitude P1, suggesting influence on early perceptual processing, whereas among fluent readers, these differences were not apparent until the later N170. Taken together, findings from the present study indicate that low-level visual characteristics and perceptual expertise interact during the specialization of neural circuits for print, with implications for theories of lateralization of neural circuits for print.