2.2 Previous Empirical Studies of Kanji
2.2.4 Toyoda (2009)
Toyoda (2009) investigated how second language learners developed their awareness and knowledge of structural and functional properties of kanji characters. The developmental process of formulation knowledge kanji characters (e.g. radicals and phonetics of kanji) was the focus. Four aspects of awareness on kanji characters were mentioned. First is the awareness of component positions and combinations. These characters were classified into four graphical configurations, including non-separable (e.g. 工 ), left-right (e.g. 功 ), top-down (e.g. 音), and others (e.g. 間). These properties are important for learners and it is expected that if learners are aware of the properties, they can acquire kanji characters well.
The second aspect of kanji knowledge awareness is the awareness of the function of radicals in compound characters. At this stage, learners may be aware of the function of semantic radicals and the development of the radical awareness may help them understand the kanji meaning. The third developmental sequence was the function of phonetics in compound characters. Kanji characters with same or similar on-readings usually include same phonetic radicals. Therefore, the radicals of kanji characters can help the readers developmentally organize the relations between each character. The fourth aspect was the awareness of the limitations of components information. At this stage, learners may be aware that radicals are not always useful as an example, 誰. With these four developmental awareness, Toyoda aimed to find that as L1 children, L2 learner would develop these different learner strategies as well.
The participants were one hundred and three college students from five Australia universities at three different proficiency levels: beginning, intermediate, and advanced.
Sixteen native speakers of Japanese were recruited as a control group. Six tasks were employed to test the participants’ ability, such as real-artificial word recognition, radical identification, meaning differentiation, sound differentiation, meaning categorization and sound matching. They were asked to complete the tasks by “think aloud” report and their
performance was recorded.
As for the beginners, some of them found the position information. These participants could recognize the radicals though might not write in the right place. Some of the participants were not confident enough to do the judgment because of the lack of kanji vocabulary. Hence, the beginners had developed position awareness of radicals. However, their radical function awareness was also at a pre-awareness level. They used familiar parts of
kanji characters but they did not know the real semantic function and use the semantic
category to make association with kanji characters. Nevertheless, they had not developed the phonetics awareness. One of participants indicated that he/she did not know most of kanji characters, not to mention to read new kanji characters. Some participants utilized radical information as a substitution strategy to pronounce kanji characters.Some of the intermediate learners had found the positional relation of radicals, and they could indicate that the radicals were put in the wrong positions and found a right-left or top-bottom relation. They also knew that radicals conveyed semantic information. When they did not know the meaning of kanji, they would use radicals as an aid to help them infer meanings. However, they had not developed phonetic awareness. While some of the participants used semantic radical information, some could indicate the phonological function of phonetics. Besides, as the beginners, they knew the semantic radicals and phonetics information were limited and several of the intermediate participants developed other strategies, such as contextual cues.
The advanced learners looked more carefully on the position of radicals and their combination, and they knew what should be radicals. However, only some of them used radicals to infer meaning. The results of the phonetics awareness test showed that they seldom used component information to help them read. They read kanji characters at a character level as well. The native speakers also showed this tendency because the inconsistent information would confuse them. They processed kanji characters as a whole at a
character level instead. While the information of radicals still used, the native speakers and the advanced learners tended to recognize kanji at a character level.
To summarized, Toyoda’s results showed that the learners of Japanese did gradually develop different degrees of awareness with respect to these four aspects. Frequently appearing kanji characters strongly linked with orthographic, phonological, and semantic information. Thus, they processed information of kanji as a whole at a character level though a radical level may still be processed.
2.2.5 Summary
Table 2-1 summarized the major findings and limitations of the four empirical studies reviewed in this section.
Table 2-1 A Summary of the Major Findings and Limitations
Major Findings Limitations
Chikamatsu (1996)
1. L1 backgrounds & kanji performances:
(1) Chinese speakers applied more visual information from their L1.
(2) English speakers used more phonological information from L1.
2. Factors affecting recognition of kanji:
familiarity and word length
1. Participants: two groups, but uneven-sized
2. Tasks: only one task containing kana
Mori (2003) Factors affecting recognition of kanji:
(1) word morphology partially determining kanji meanings (2) Contextual clues determining
syntactic categories of kanji
1. L1 backgrounds & kanji performances:
(1) Learners with character
2. Factors affecting recognition of kanji:
(1) shape
1. Proficiency levels & kanji performances:
(1) beginner-level: semantic radical (2) intermediate-level: phonetic radical (3) advanced-level: kanji as a whole 2. Factor: familiarity
Tasks: three tasks but with no statistical analysis
From these four studies, different aspects of kanji were discussed. One important factor examined is the background of learners’ L1 and how this L1 prior knowledge influences L2
learners’ kanji performance. The L1 transfer did occur (Chikamatsu, 1996; Haththotuwa Gamage, 2003). However, the Chinese and English learners employed different strategies.
The Chinese speakers used more visual information and the English speakers used more phonological information (Chikamatsu, 1996). Nonetheless, Haththotuwa Gamage (2003) showed an opposite pattern. It was the Chinese groups that used more phonological information and that the English group used more visual information. The difference between Chikamatsu (1996) and Haththotuwa Gamage (2003) might be due to the research design. Chikamatsu (1996) used different forms of kana characters to investigate their participants’ reaction time and how their participants recognized Japanese words. However, Haththotuwa Gamage (2003) used questionnaire and asked their participants to self-estimate whether the statements of the strategies were useful for them. Therefore, it was highly likely that the learners would identify phonological strategies as useful because the pronunciation could help learners remember kanji characters as well. Hence, the use of visual and phonological information needs further investigation. Moreover, learners at different proficiency levels might show different performances on the recognition of kanji. Other strategies, including recognizing semantic radical, phonetic radical, were utilized at separate stages. The semantic radical was identified at a beginning-level but the phonetic radical was found only recognized as early as at an intermediate-level. The advanced-level learners used these strategies less but viewed kanji as a whole (Toyoda, 2009). Besides the strategy uses, there were some other factors influencing kanji recognition. The familiarity and word length of kanji influenced the reaction time when the participants were identifying kanji (Chikamatsu, 1996). If the kanji was familiar, the participants would not decompose kanji into smaller components to infer meanings (Toyoda, 2009). The word morphology and contextual clues were found to provide two types of information and helped determine the meaning of kanji characters (Mori, 2003). Other than the above factors, shape, meaning and pronunciation of kanji were important as well.
However, there are limitations in these studies. First is about the participants. In Chikamatsu (1996), the participant pool was uneven of the two groups that the number of English participants was twice as many as the Chinese participants. Mori’s (2003) study only included one English group. The participants’ prior Japanese learning experiences were ignored in Haththotuwa Gamage (2003). As for the task design, both of Chikamatsu (1996) and Haththotuwa Gamage (2003) only designed one task. The test items were only kana in the study of Chikamatsu. Although two or more than two tasks were included in Mori’s (2003) study and Toyoda’s (2009) study, the categorization of kanji characters and data analysis could be examined systematically. Mori’s task contained only big categories, that is, context and word morphology. For the study of Toyoda, however, statistical analysis could be added. Therefore, concerning these limitations, further research is desirable.
2.4 Summary of Chapter Two
In this chapter, some important theoretical and empirical studies have been reviewed, along with a new classification of kanji. As mentioned in Section 2.1, processing kanji characters has been discussed in the aspects of semantics and phonology influence. Besides, the dual pronunciations of a kanji character have been claimed as a suppletion relation base on the lexeme based theory. In Section 2.2, the L1 transfer has been found. Other factors, such as context clues and word morphology, were also claimed to have influence on L2 learners’ recognition of kanji from the aspects of semantics and syntax. The present study aims to examine the influence of Chinese knowledge about Japanese kanji characters in Chinese students’ second language acquisition. The research design of the study will be introduced in the next chapter.
C HAPTER T HREE R ESEARCH D ESIGN
This chapter introduces the research design of the current study. Section 3.1 describes the participants participating in this study, and in Section 3.2 presents methods and materials. The experimental procedures are reported in Section 3.3. Finally, a summary of this chapter is given in Section 3.4.
3.1 Participants
The current study investigates the second language acquisition of Japanese kanji by Chinese students in Taiwan. The proficiency of second language learners is one of important factors which may influence the acquisition of kanji characters. Thus, participants at different L2 proficiency levels were recruited. There were 72 Japanese majors from Soochow University and Kainan University, and they were grouped into three proficiency groups according to their performance on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (the JLPT designed by Japanese Foundation & Japanese Educational Exchanges and Services, 2012) which they had taken before the research. The three groups were basic, intermediate, and advanced. The reason why the JLPT test was used to judge participants’ proficiency level was that all students had been taken this test before. The JLPT is also one of the most credible Japanese proficiency tests in Taiwan because the certification of JLPT is internationally accepted by about 65 countries and can be used to apply for schools and employments (Japanese Foundation & Japanese Educational Exchanges and Services, 2012).
Besides, 24 Japanese native speakers who were exchange students of National Taiwan Normal University were recruited in the study as a L1 baseline group. Since kanji characters are part of Japanese, Japanese native speakers should know the form and the meaning of
kanji very well. Hence, their results of the two kanji tasks could be a baseline and help
judge performance of learners of Japanese. Table 3-1 is a summary of the three proficiency groups and the expected number of each group.Table 3-1 A Summary of the Participants
Group Japanese Proficiency Level Mean Age Number
B Basic 21 24
I Intermediate 20 24
A Advanced 23 24
L1 baseline Native Japanese speakers 24 24
Total 96
3.2 Methods and Materials
In the area of Japanese kanji acquisition, various methods have been conducted (Chikamatsu, 1996; Haththotuwa Gamage, 2003; Kess & Miyamoto, 1999; Klingborg, 2012;
Mori 2003). For example, some studies used a structural analysis to examine kanji (Kess &
Miyamoto, 1999; Klingborg, 2012). As the participants of the present study were Chinese learners who had already known the structures of Chinese characters very well, the internal structure analysis of kanji were not considered. Chikamatsu (1996) conducted a Japanese
kana lexical judgment test which was a statistical analysis. Haththotuwa Gamage (2003)
employed a questionnaire to test their strategy uses. Mori (2003) employed a confidence scale to let the participants rank the accuracy of their own answers and the contexts as a condition were examined. However, some of these studies only focused on learner strategies (e.g. Haththotuwa Gamage, 2003) and some of them only discussed the familiarity of kana characters. To provide a whole picture of kanji acquisition by Chinese L2 learners ofJapanese, we made use of these different methods. We counted the accuracy rate of the participants’ responses to two tasks to estimate our learners’ performance more efficiently and put more focuses on the kanji characters.
Concerning the selection of test items, the kanji characters included in the tasks were chosen from 1,945 jooyoo kanji (The Agency for Culture Affair of Japan, 2010).
Researchers like Vee (2006) have mentioned the two-kanji characters might be processed differently at the morpheme level, and that learners might assign meaning to each kanji character first and combine the meaning of two characters later. Therefore, the chosen kanji were one-kanji and two-kanji characters. All of these test items were randomly ordered in the experiment. The following subsections present a new classification of kanji characters and introduce details of the two tasks.
3.2.1 A New Classification of Kanji Characters
As shown in Kess and Miyamoto (1999), kanji characters can be either classified into four types. However, these types may be not applicable for Chinese learners of Japanese because these learners are familiar with the form of the kanji. Besides, as a Chinese learner of Japanese, they may transfer L1 Chinese knowledge into L2 Japanese. Hence, if there is correspondence on form between Japanese kanji characters and Chinese characters, these learners may presume that the meaning is the same. They would view the kanji characters as a whole and directly infer the meaning from what they know in Chinese. Therefore, a new classification of kanji characters by focusing on the correspondence between form and meaning was proposed.
3.2.1.1 One-Kanji Characters
Type 1: Same form in Chinese and Japanese Type 1-1: same meaning
This type refers to the kanji characters in which the forms can be found in Chinese characters with the same meanings, as in (5):
(5) a. 足 ‘feet’
b. 上 ‘up’
Type 1-2: different meaning
This type refers to kanji characters in which the forms are the same as Chinese characters but the meanings of these kanji characters differ from those of Chinese characters, as in (6):
(6) a. 湯 ‘bathing pool’
b. 私 ‘I’
Type 2: Semi-semi form in Chinese and Japanese Type 2-1: same meaning
Kanji characters of this type and Chinese characters share the same meaning but their
forms are different. Some of the forms of these kanji characters are the same as simplified Chinese characters. Comparing (7) and (8), we can see Japanese kanji characters in (7) are the same as simplified forms of Chinese characters while examples in (8) are traditional forms in Chinese.(7) a. 昼 ‘day’
b. 乱 ‘mess; war’
(8) a. 晝 ‘day’
b. 亂 ‘mess; war’
Type 2-2: different meaning
Kanji characters which are different in meanings with Chinese characters and also
different in forms in Japanese and Chinese are of this type. These kanji characters are have the same simplified forms in Japanese as in (9) and the Chinese examples as in (10):(9) a. 机 ‘desk’
b. 変 ‘unusual’
(10) a. 機 ‘machine’
b. 變 ‘change’
Type 3: Different form in Chinese and Japanese
Forms of kanji characters of this type are newly created in Japanese that the forms of
kanji characters do not correspond to the forms of Chinese characters. However, as Chinese
characters are usually composed of two or more components, Japanese kanji characters may be created by borrowing these small units. Hence, these newly kanji characters are composed of at least one familiar component of Chinese characters, as can be seen in (11):(11) a. 読 ‘to read’
b. 呪 ‘to curse’
In (11), the kanji characters may be composed of one familiar component, such as left radical 言 in (11a), and sometimes, the kanji may be formed by two familiar components as in (11b), where the components 口 and 兄 form the kanji 呪.
3.2.1.2 Two-Kanji Characters
Type 1: Same form in Japanese and Chinese Type 1-1: same meaning
This type refers to two-kanji characters which corresponding forms can be found in Chinese and the meanings are also same, as shown in (12).
(12) a. 容易 ‘simple’
b. 方法 ‘method, manner’
Type 1-2: different meaning
This type refers to two-kanji characters which forms are corresponding to the Chinese form but their meanings are different. As shown in (13), 足跡 and 姿勢 in Japanese could mean ‘significant achievement’ and ‘attitude,’ respectively. However, in Chinese 足跡 means ‘footprint,’ and 姿勢 means ‘gesture’.
(13) a. 足跡 ‘significant achievement’
b. 姿勢 ‘attitude’
Type 2: Semi-same form in Japanese and Chinese Type 2-1: same meaning
This type refers to two-kanji characters which forms are different from Chinese complex forms but correspond to simplified Chinese, and their meanings are the same as the meanings of Chinese characters. Sometimes, one of the kanji characters may not be in simplified form.
They may be a combination of a simplified Chinese character and a new kanji character as in (14a) or a new kanji character and a traditional form of the Chinese character as in (14b).
(14) a. 気体 ‘gas’
b. 実力 ‘one’s strength’
Type 2-2: different meaning
This type refers to two-kanji characters which forms correspond to simplified Chinese, but their meanings are different from those of the Chinese characters. In Type 2-1, these characters may also be combined by simplified Chinese characters and new kanji characters as in (15a) or two new kanji characters as in (15b).
(15) a. 絵図 ‘floor plan’
b. 難聴 ‘hard hearing’
Type 3: Different form in Japanese and Chinese
This type refers to the kanji combination in the two-kanji characters that cannot be found in Chinese. Although in Japanese 我 and 慢 can be combined as a phrase as in (16a), in Chinese they cannot. In (16b), Japanese 波風, which means ‘argument’ is also different from Chinese characters 風波 in that the characters are in reverse order.
(16) a. 我慢 ‘to tolerate’ definitions and examples of each type of kanji characters are as follows.
Table 3-2 A Summary of the New Classification of Kanji Characters
Meaning
cover several types discussed in Kess and Miyamoto’s study. For example, Type 1 and Type 2 in this study can cover pictographic kanji characters, diagrammatical kanji, compound-semantic kanji and phonetic-semantic kanji. Since Chinese learners seldom decompose kanji characters into small units, it is expected that factors influencing Chinese learners’ acquisition of kanji characters, such as forms and meanings, can be better examined in the present study. In addition, it is predicted that difficulty order of these types are Type 3 > Type 2-2 > Type 2-1 > Type 1-2 > Type 1-1. As Lado (1957) and Stockwell et al. (1965) suggested, differences between the L1 and L2 are the source of learning difficulty in L2 acquisition.
3.2.2 Two Tasks
As shown in Table 3-3, two tasks were implemented, the main structure of which was same. The first task was the kanji-picture mapping task (abbreviated as PM task in Chapter Four), and the second was the kanji-text mapping tasks (abbreviated as TM task in Chapter Four).
Table 3-3 A Summary of the Task Design
In each task, there were two parts, one-kanji and two-kanji characters, and these kanji characters were classified into three major types, same form, semi-same form and different form, according to the form condition. In addition to the form condition, the meaning condition was examined.
Under Type 1 and Type 2, each kanji type was further divided into two subtypes the same meaning and the different meaning. In our task design, each type consisted of two questions. In the parts for the one-kanji test and two-kanji character test, there were ten questions and five fillers, respectively. Therefore, each task consisted of thirty questions.
Examples and question items are presented as follows.
3.2.3 The Kanji-Picture Mapping Task (PM Task)
As mentioned above, no previous research on kanji acquisition has been conducted with pictures as one of the tasks to test L2 learners’ kanji recognition. However, pictures can provide pictorial clues; therefore, a kanji-picture mapping task with multiple choices was employed to test the participants’ kanji knowledge. The participants in this task were asked to map pictures with correct one-kanji character in Part 1 and two-kanji characters in Part 2 (see Appendix A).
Table 3-4 A Test Example in Pictorial Format
No. Answer Pictures Choices
Part 1 (one-kanji character)
(A) (A) 足 (B) 踝 (C) 支
Part 2 (two-kanji character)
(A) (A) 大根 (B) 萝卜 (C)胡卜
As can be seen in Table 3-4, the task was designed in multiple choice format, with three options provided for each question. The participants had to choose one correct answer and write the answer in the column.
3.2.4 Kanji-text Mapping Task (TM Task)
The second task is a kanji-text mapping task. According to Mori (2003), context can offer participants more meaning-related information. In their task, textual clues were given and helped the participants judge the correct meaning of kanji. Hence, the task design of one-kanji and two-kanji characters in textual format is shown in Table 3-5.
Table 3-5 A Test Example in Textual Format
No. Answer Fill in the blank Choices
No. Answer Fill in the blank Choices