ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Lang. Sci.
Sec. Bilingualism
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/flang.2025.1624184
Semantic Accessibility Effects of Character Semantic Radicals in Chinese Phonograms' Recognition
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chongqing Shapingba District International Joint Institute of Brain Computer Language Interface, Chongqing, China
- 2College of Language Intelligence (College of General Education), Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China
- 3Language & Brain Research Center, Sichuan International Studies, Chongqing, China
- 4School of English Studies, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China
- 5School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
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Prior research concentrated on testifying to the presence of the semantic activation of semantic radicals as well as the separate role of a couple of modulating factors like Transparency of phonograms, Genuineness of phonograms, and Position of semantic radicals. The present study first proposed a hierarchy on the ease of semantic activation, namely, a hypothesis on the semantic accessibility of character semantic radicals in Chinese phonogram recognition, and empirically investigated the hypothesis. Specifically, the three modulating factors were manipulated in a lexical decision task. The highest semantic accessibility was observed for the character semantic radicals seated in the high-frequency positions of opaque phonograms, followed by the character semantic radicals seated in the high-frequency positions of transparent phonograms, and the lowest semantic accessibility was observed for the character semantic radicals seated in the high-frequency or low-frequency positions of pseudo-phonograms. Results partially supported the hypothesis, suggesting that the semantic behavior of character semantic radicals was shaped by the host phonograms, which embodied the configuration of such modulating factors as phonograms' transparency, genuineness, and semantic radicals' position.
Keywords: Character semantic radicals, Semantic accessibility, modulating factors, Chinese character recognition, Semantic Processing
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 17 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Cao, Tan, Duan and Qu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ya Tan, School of English Studies, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China
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