Analytic Versus Holistic Recognition of Chinese Words Among L2 Learners

Abstract

In studying the relationship between word recognition and reading development, a distinction is made between analytic and holistic processing of words. These strategies are often assessed in a length effect in an alphabetic language or in a stroke‐number effect in a logographic language. Analytical processing is associated with a robust length or stroke‐number effect while holistic processing is reflected in smaller or a lack of such effects. Research has shown that skilled readers employ holistic processing while less skilled readers rely more on analytical processing. The present study examined analytic versus holistic word recognition among second language learners by comparing learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) and Chinese native speakers (NSs) in a lexical decision task. Thirty Chinese NSs and 28 CSL learners were tested on 90 disyllabic Chinese words that varied in stroke number from 5 to 27. A robust stroke‐number effect was found among CSL participants but not among NS controls. The findings raised a number of theoretical and pedagogical issues in relation to word recognition and reading development among CSL learners and among second language learners in general.

Lexical Orthographic Knowledge Mediates the Relationship Between Character Reading and Reading Comprehension Among Learners With Chinese as a Second Language

“…In constructing the path model demonstrating the direct and indirect effects of character reading on comprehension, we put the OKC as the first mediator followed by the OKCC as the second one based on the following assumptions: (a) Following a bottom-up approach in reading ( Gough, 1972 ; LaBerge and Samuels, 1974 ), reading is a process starting from the recognition of the smallest linguistic units (i.e., character) to larger units (words, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs). As hypothesized in the literature, the lexical orthographic knowledge could help readers surpass character-level reading and achieve quickly and fluently comprehend text at higher linguistic levels such as sentence- and text-levels ( Ziegler et al, 2003 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ). Therefore, it was reasonable to arrange the variables with regard to the fine-grained linguistic units; (b) In terms of task difficulty, we considered OKCC was more challenging than OKC to CSL students because they had to additionally recognize characters and understand the context of sentences in order to complete the task.…”

Analytic visual word recognition among Chinese L2 learners

“…Both produced a length effect. Jiang et al (2020) is the only published study so far that was specifically designed to compare L2 and L1 speakers in the area of serial processing in visual word recognition. They examined serial processing in visual Chinese word recognition by means of the stroke number effect.…”

Comparing the Effects of Stroke-Appearing and Stroke-Disappearing on Learning the Order of Strokes in Chinese Characters

“…This result may be explained by the stroke-number effect, which proposed that the absence of a stroke-number effect may reflect a parallel or holistic strategy (Jiang et al, 2020). However, there are no consistent results showing that stroke-number effect may affect the recognition of Chinese characters (Jiang et al, 2020). A meta-analysis study compared the learning outcomes of typing and handwriting in Chinese, the results of which revealed that handwriting had positive effects on Chinese learners' orthography recognition and orthography-semantic mapping at both the character and lexical levels (Lyu et al, 2021).…”

“…An empirical study revealed that writing exercises help foreign language learners learn Chinese characters, but stroke order learning may not significantly improve the recognition of Chinese characters (Hsiung et al, 2017). This result may be explained by the stroke-number effect, which proposed that the absence of a stroke-number effect may reflect a parallel or holistic strategy (Jiang et al, 2020). However, there are no consistent results showing that stroke-number effect may affect the recognition of Chinese characters (Jiang et al, 2020).…”