When reading in a second language, a reader's first language may be involved. For word reading, the question is how and at what level: lexical, pre-lexical, or both. In three experiments, we employed an implicit reading task (color judgment) and an explicit reading task (word naming) to test whether a Chinese meaning equivalent character and its…

The connections among language, writing system, and reading are part of what confronts a child in learning to read. We examine these connections in addressing how reading processes adapt to the variety of written language and how writing adapts to language. The first adaptation (reading to writing), as evidenced in behavioral and neuroscience…

The logographic nature of the Chinese writing system creates a huge hurdle for Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners. Existing literature (e.g., Shen, [Shen, H. H., 2010]; Taft & Chung, [Taft, M., 1999]) suggests that radical knowledge facilitates character learning. In this project, we selected 48 compound characters in eight radical…

Learning to read a second language (L2) is especially challenging when a target L2 requires learning new graphic forms. Learning Chinese, which consists of thousands of characters composed of hundreds of basic writing units, presents such a challenge of orthographic learning for adult English speakers at the beginning stages of learning. In this…

The visual complexity of orthographies varies across writing systems. Prior research has shown that complexity strongly influences the initial stage of reading development: the perceptual learning of grapheme forms. This study presents a computational simulation that examines the degree to which visual complexity leads to grapheme learning…

Learning to write words may strengthen orthographic representations and thus support word-specific recognition processes. This hypothesis applies especially to Chinese because its writing system encourages character-specific recognition that depends on accurate representation of orthographic form. We report 2 studies that test this hypothesis in…

The authors examine the implications of research on Chinese for theories of reading and propose the lexical constituency model as a general framework for word reading across writing systems. Word identities are defined by 3 interlinked constituents (orthographic, phonological, and semantic). The implemented model simulates the time course of…

Two experiments were carried out to examine how adult readers of English learn to acquire the orthographic structure and function of Chinese characters selected from reading material in their first-semester college course in Chinese. The first experiment, an online lexical decision task, demonstrated that the learners quickly acquired knowledge…

Research on how the brain implements reading has produced results of remarkable consistency, especially on the functional anatomy of single word reading. We examine the general features of this emerging knowledge and draw attention to the extent to which it converges with results from other methods of reading science in several areas: reading…

Bilingual reading can require more than knowing two languages. Learners must acquire also the writing conventions of their second language, which can differ in its deep mapping principles (writing system) and its visual configurations (script). We review ERP (event-related potential) and fMRI studies of both Chinese-English bilingualism and…

Investigated second- through sixth-grade children's word-reading skills by testing their processing of nonword primes. Determined that good readers showed more orthographic priming than poor readers at more times, and more pseudo-homophone priming at short durations. Determined that the quick, automatic and general activation of this priming…

According to the Universal Writing System Constraint, all writing systems encode language, and thus reflect basic properties of the linguistic system they encode. According to a second universal, the Universal Phonological Principle, the activation of word pronunciations occurs for skilled readers across all writing systems. We review recent…

Analysis of research literature shows both important commonalities and differences between how children learn to read and how adults can be taught to read in literacy programs. Both the narrow and broad definitions of literacy are legitimate for specific purposes. The narrow definition identifies literacy acquisition with learning how the writing…

This study investigated cross-language and writing system relationship in biliteracy acquisition of children learning to read two different writing systems--Chinese and English. Forty-six Mandarin-speaking children were tested for their first language (Chinese-L1) and second language (English-L2) reading skills. Comparable experiments in Chinese…