We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffuse tensor imaging (DTI) to study neural implications of silent reading of words in mutually comprehensible but visually and orthographically distinct languages for example Hindi and Urdu by independent groups of skilled readers. The fMRI results (conjunction analyses) showed the…

Developmental composition courses serve a sizable and growing number of Generation 1.5 students, or long-term U.S. resident language learners, and it is believed that language challenges may be part of Generation 1.5 writers' difficulty in controlling the academic register. The current study investigates possible similarities and differences…

Brain activation during reading of phonographic (Hangul) and ideographic (Hanja) words is compared using functional MRI by taking advantage of the bi-scriptal system of the Korean language. To examine the psycholinguistic difference, i.e., phonographic vs. ideographic, separately from other differences due to Hanja being a secondary script, we…

Describes the unicode project, which is working toward a single computer encoding scheme for all the worlds' scripts. It focuses on the special challenge of encoding Chinese characters, and uses the example of Hokkien, a Chinese dialect spoken by most people in Taiwan, to explore the problem of unorthodox, unstable, or unofficial scripts.…

A convenient and user-friendly method for computer-based second-language instruction (especially exotic-alphabet languages) presents a "pool" of text chunks from which the student uses a mouse to select and drag the chunks to form answers. Several types of feedback, including edit markup, may be selected; revision consists of rearranging, adding,…

University students in Taiwan evaluated seven prepared Taibun reading samples on six characteristic scales. Results reveal that Han character-only orthography received the highest rating, Han-Roman mixed received the second highest, and Roman-only received the lowest.(Author/VWL)

Two experiments are reported on the array-scanning characteristics of Malaysian subjects exposed to arrays of Roman and Arabic letters. Unique search patterns were found with both letters. Ways are discussed in which these patterns may be related to the underlying linguistic structure of words in Bahasa Malaysia, English, and Arabic. (13…

Considers whether or not library materials in East Asian languages should be integrated into the general collection. Romanized access through a Latin-script library catalog and nonromanized access through a browsing collection are considered. After exploring the difficulties in romanizing Chinese and Japanese scripts, a separate collection is…

Reports results of a study conducted with learners of Chinese who were involved in a late immersion program in a graduate school of education in Australia. The aim of the project was to explore the depths of learners' experiences of learning Chinese in an immersion setting. (Author/JL)