The study reported in this paper is an attempt to investigate how well children are aware of the orthographic structures of Chinese characters.
Ho-Cheong Lam,Bike-May Amy Tsui I Awareness of Orthographic Structure in Children's Learning of Chinese CharactersI107
To do this, in the study we adopted the approach of investigating how the children made inferences about the meanings of unknown characters. This approach is however not enough. For instance,this study has only specifically dealt with components,such as
the木 (tree) in榕 Ijung41
(banyan),which are themselves simple characters made up of only one component. But how is it about those components which are compound characters,namel乎; the~皮/
boll
in玻 IboII
(spinach)? Do children incorrectly interpret thecharacters覆
IboII(spinach)and椒 IziuI
I(pepper) 的 related
to the meaningsof波 (wave) and 叔 (uncle)
respectively? Being the phonetic radicals,these components however do not provide a clue to the meanings of the characters.This study has also only examined those components with functioning positions on the left, such as
the 女 (female) in 媽 Imaall
(mother). Do children recognize the functions of those components that are located on the right as semantic radicals,for example,the (knife) in thecharacter如JIhakII (crave) andthe 烏 (bird) in 鴨 laap31
(duck)? Does children's awareness of the functions of these components on the right develop later than that of the more familiar components on the left? Or does it simply depend on the frequency of occurrence of the components in functioning as semantic radicals regardless of their functioning positions in the characters? It is in fact interesting to find out how children will actually analyze an unknown characterlike 鳩 IgauII
(turtledove). Do they recognizethe 烏 on
the right as a semantic radical and arrive at the conclusionthat鳩 is
a kind of“
bird"?Or, do they attempt to pronounce the charactert鳴的 Iniu51since the鳥
Iniu51 is on the right,where phonetic radicals are usually located? Answers to all these questions can more solidly substantiate the results of the present study and give us a more complete picture of children's awareness of the orthographic structures of Chinese characters.
Acknowledge
We would like to acknowledge the support of the Small Scale Research Fund at the later stage of this study. Special thanks must also go to the three schools and all of the children,who have participated in this study.
《當代教育研究季刊》第三十 卷第三期
108IContemporary Educational Research Quarterly Vo1.21, NO.3
References
E寧 (2002 )。漢字構形學講座。上海市:上海教育。
[Wang, N. (2002). Lectures on the study of the construction of Chinese characters. Shanghai,China: Shanghai Educational.]
王軍、鄒曉麗(編) 0 (1999) 。漢字。香港:和平圖書海峰。
[Wang, N. ,& Zou, X. L.(Eds.).(1999). Chinese characters. Hong Kong,China:
Peace.]
卒于:定( 1986) 。漢字的起源與演變論最。臺北市:聯解。
[Li, H.-T. (1986). The origin and evolution of Chinese characters. Taipei, Taiwan: Linking.]
谷衍奎 (2003 )。漢字源流字典 o 北京市:華夏。
[Gu,Y. K. (2003). Dictionary of the evolution of Chinese characters. Beijing, China: Huaxia.]
邱德修(1995)。文字學新揮。臺北市:台記圖書。
[Chiu,T.-S. (1995). New investigation in Chinese etymology. Taipei,Taiwan:
Hochi.]
香港語言學學會 (2002 )。粵語拼音字表( -.版)。香港:香港語言學學會。
[Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. (2002). Guide to LSHK Cantonese romanization of Chinese characters (2nd ed.). Hong Kong, China:
Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.]
香港課程發展議會( 1990) 。分級常用字表 o 載於香港課程發展議會(主 編) ，中國語之科:小一至小六課程綱要(頁的-76 )。香港:政府 印務局。
[Curriculum Development Council. (1990). List of frequently used characters by grade level. In Curriculum Development Council (Ed.), Syllabuses for primary schools.Chinese language (pp. 69-76). Hong Kong,China:
Government Printer.]
l可明( 1996) 。中國前文字學通論 o 北京市:北京大學。
[Gao,M. (1996). Introduction to ancient Chinese characters. Beijing,China:
Peking University.]
Ho-Cheong Lam,Bike-May Amy Tsui Awareness of Orthographic Structure in Children's Learning of Chinese Characters1109
高景成( 1988)。略談形聲字的難點和其他。載於語言文字應用研究(主 編) .漢字問題學術討論會論文無(頁 100-107)。北京市:語文。
[Gao, J. C. (1988). Some thoughts on the difficulty ofsemantic司phonetic
characters and others. In Institute of Applied Linguistics. (Ed.), Proceedings of the conference on academic questions about Chinese characters (pp. 100-107). Beijing,China: Yu Wen.]
高景成 (2004 )。常用字字源字典。北京市:語文。
[Gao, J. C. (2004). Dictionary of the origins ofcommon砂 usedcharacters.
Beiji嗯，China: Yu Wen.]
梁東漢( 1959) 。漢字的結構及其流變。上海市:上海教育。
[Lia時， D. H. (1959).Structure and evolution of Chinese charαcters. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Educational.]
課程發展處 (2007 )。香港小學學習字詞表。香港:教育局。
[Curriculum Development Institute. (2007).Hong Kong Chinese lexicallists for
primaη'Iearning.Hong Kong,China: Education Bureau.]
龍宇純(2001 )。中國文字學。事北市:五四書店。
[Lung,Y.C. (200 I). Chin臼ee砂mology.Taipei,Taiwan: May Fourth.]
蘇培成(2001 )。現代漢字學綱要(增訂本)。北京市:北京大學。
[Su,P. C.(2001).Essential study ofmodern Chinese characters. Beijing,China:
Peking University.]
Chan, L., & Nunes, T. (1998). Children's understanding ofthe formal and functional characteristics of written Chinese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19,115-131.
Ding,G.,Peng,D.,& Taft,M. (2004). The nature of the mental representation of radicals in Chinese: A priming study. JournαI of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory,andCogniti仰， 30， 530-539.
Feldman, L. B.,& Siok, W. W. T. (1997). The role of component function in visual recognition of Chinese characters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory,andCognition， 刃， 776-781.
Ho, C. S. H., & Bryant, P. (1997a). Learning to read Chinese beyond the logographic phase. Reading ResearchQuarter秒， 32， 276-289.
《當代教育研究季刊》第二十 卷第三期
110IContemporary Educational Research Quarterly Vo1.21,NO.3
Ho,C.S. H.,& Bryant,P. (1997b). Phonological skills are important in learning to read Chinese.Developmental Psychology,33,946-951.
Ho,C. S. H.,Yau, P. W. Y., & Au,A. (2003). Development of orthographic knowledge and its relationship with reading and spelling among Chinese kindergarten and primary school children. In C. McBride-Chang & H.
C. Chen (Eds.), Reading development in Chinese children (pp. 51-71).
Westport,CT:Praeger.
Lam,H. C. (2006). Orthographic awareness in learning Chinese characters.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation,The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Lam, H.C. (2008). An exploratory study of the various ways that children read and write unknown Chinese characters.JournalοfBasic Education, J7, 73-97.
Lam, H. C. (2012). Elaborating the concepts of part and whole in variation theory: The case of learning Chinese characters. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. DOl: 10.1080/00313831.2012.732604
Lam, H. c., & Tsui,A. B. M. (2013). Drawing on the variation theory to enhance students' learning of Chinese characters.Instructional Science, 41,955-974.
Shu, H.,& Anderson, R. C. (1997). Role of radical awareness in the character and word acquisition of Chinese children. Reading Research Quarter秒，
32,78-89.
Shu，旺， Anderson,R. 仁， & Wu,N. (2000). Phonetic awareness: Knowledge of orthography-phonology relationships in the character acquisition of Chinese children.Journal of EducationalPsychology， 刃，而-62.
Shu,H.,Chen,X.,Anderson,R. 仁， Wu，叭， & Xuan, Y. (2003). Properties of school Chinese: Implications for learning to read. Child Development,74, 27-47.
Taft, M., & Zhu, X. (1997). SUbmorphemic processing in reading Chinese.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23,761-775
Taft, M.,Zhu,X., & Peng, D. (1999). Positional specificity of radicals in Chinese character recognition.Journal of Memory and Language,40, 498-519.
Ho-Cheong Lam,Bike-May Amy Tsui Awareness of Orthographic Structure in Children's Learning of Chinese Characters IIII
Appendix
FullList of the Eight Types ofItems used in the Study