Chinese character processing by adult native speakers – Recognition and memorization

Abstract

This is a proposal based on literature review which focuses on Chinese character recognition. It also includes sections on Chinese character memorization. This paper aims to give suggestions on Chinese character instruction which help adjust the teaching methods for second language learners of Chinese. Review is done based on previous research on semantic activation and phonological activation in Chinese character recognition and Children processing of Chinese character by native Chinese speakers. Two experiments are proposed to test native Chinese speakers in Hong Kong through: (i) a lexical task aiming at finding out the effectiveness of semantic and phonological activation on Chinese character recognition and looking for any preference on either activation, and (ii) a character memorization task intending to investigate whether memory on graphemic representation or on phonological representation of Chinese characters is captured with higher reliability in mind by native speakers when they are exposed to a completely new character and to find out the preference between the two representations. Expected result is that semantic activation and graphemic representation are more influential and powerful to native speakers because of the more explicit association between semantic radicals and character meanings on real-world denotation and the higher observable degree of graphemic representation.