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Separate processes of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals in Chinese character writing: evidence from a Chinese dysgraphic patient

Heidi Hoi-Ching Yeung1 and Kai-Yan Dustin Lau1*
  • 1 Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, SAR China

Background: Chinese presents an unique feature of containing phonetic compounds, which contribute to the majority of Chinese characters and are formed with a meaning component named the semantic radical and a pronunciation component named the phonetic radical (Han, Zhang, Shu & Bi, 2007). How the radicals are processed has attracted research interests over the past two decades. Law (1994) suggested that semantic and phonetic radicals correspond to units or constituents at some level of cognitive processing while the many errors at the radical level made by patients from Law & Caramazza (1995) and Law, Yeung, Wong & Chiu (2005) further showed that semantic and phonetic radicals might represent a particular processing level. Yet, the question of whether the encoding processes of semantic and phonetic radicals are dependent or separate processes awaits further research. Furthermore, since the orthographic representations of characters may contain specification for position of each constituent within the character (Law, 2004) and phonetic compounds have specific configurations with the semantic radical appearing on the left in the majority of phonetic compounds (Law & Or, 2001), it is further questioned whether the encoding processes of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals are sequential or parallel. Method: WCY, a 57-year-old Chinese male stroke client with 7 months post onset was recruited. Initial assessment using the Cantonese Aphasia Battery (Yiu, 1992) revealed that he has mild anomic aphasia (AQ=93.5). Follow up assessment using Logogen model (Ellis & Young, 2013) as the framework with the stimuli set used in Law, Yeung, Wong & Chiu (2005), the Pyramid Palm Tree Test (PPT; Howard & Patterson, 1992), and the Birmingham Object Recognition Battery (BORB; Riddoch & Humphreys, 1993) was conducted. Results revealed close to 100% accuracy (24/25 in test 7, 25/25 in test 8, 23/23 in test 12 of BORB and 25/28 in PPT) in semantic tasks, 80.2% (174/217) in oral-picture-naming task and 43.3% (94/214) in written-picture-naming task. An additional assessment using a writing-to-dictation task was conducted. A total of 96 Chinese characters with frequencies ranging from low to high were selected for the writing-to-dictation task. Results: WCY achieved 22.9% (22/96) in the writing-to-dictation task. Apart from no response (27%, 20/74) given, errors analysis showed that WCY demonstrated semantic radical substitution/deletion (35.1%, 26/74), phonetic radical substitution (6.8%, 5/74), substitution of both semantic and phonetic radicals (14.9%, 11/74), and homophone substitution (4.1%, 3/74). Discussion: WCY’s performance indicated that he has relatively more intact phonetic radical encoding compared to semantic radical encoding. The discrepancy between semantic radical errors and phonetic radical errors indicate distinctive encoding processes of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals in writing Chinese characters. Furthermore, among all the semantic radical substitution/deletion errors produced, 65% (17/26) were written in a non-conventional sequence where WCY wrote the phonetic radicals before he wrote the semantic radicals even though the target semantic radicals are located on the left. It is thus argued that the encoding of phonetic radicals and semantic radicals in writing Chinese characters are parallel instead of sequential.

References

Ellis, A. W., & Young, A. W. (2013). Human cognitive neuropsychology: A textbook with readings. Psychology Press.
Han, Z., Zhang, Y., Shu, H., & Bi, Y. (2007). The orthographic buffer in writing Chinese characters: Evidence from a dysgraphic patient. Cognitive neuropsychology, 24(4), 431-450.
Howard, D., & Patterson, K. E. (1992). The Pyramids and Palm Trees Test: A test of semantic access from words and pictures. Thames Valley Test Company.
Law, S. P. (1994). The structure of orthographic representations of Chinese characters, from the perspective of the cognitive neuropsychological approach. Bulletin of The Institute of History and Philology Academia Sinica,65, 81-130.
Law, S. P. (2004). Writing errors of a Cantonese dysgraphic patient and their theoretical implications. Neurocase, 10(2), 132-140.
Law, S. P., & Caramazza, A. (1995). Cognitive processes in writing Chinese characters: Basic issues and some preliminary data. Speech and reading: A comparative approach, 143-190.
Law, S. P., & Or, B. (2001). A case study of acquired dyslexia and dysgraphia in Cantonese: Evidence for nonsemantic pathways for reading and writing Chinese. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 18(8), 729-748.
Law, S. P., Yeung, O., Wong, W., & Chiu, K. M. (2005). Processing of semantic radicals in
writing Chinese characters: Data from a Chinese dysgraphic patient. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 22(7), 0885-903.
Riddoch, M. J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1993). Birmingham object recognition battery. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Yiu, E.M.L. (1992). Linguistic assessment of Chinese-speaking aphasics: Development of a Cantonese aphasia battery. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 7(4), 379-424.

Keywords: dysgraphia, Chinese writing, Lexical Processing, encoding processes, Processing Models

Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016.

Presentation Type: Poster Sessions

Topic: Academy of Aphasia

Citation: Yeung H and Lau K (2016). Separate processes of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals in Chinese character writing: evidence from a Chinese dysgraphic patient. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00010

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Received: 20 Apr 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016.

* Correspondence: Dr. Kai-Yan Dustin Lau, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong, SAR China, dustin.lau@polyu.edu.hk