Sub-lexical phonological processing during Chinese characters reading among L1 and L2 Chinese readers using cross-modal homophone judgment

Abstract

This study studied the regularity effect during Chinese character reading among native first language Chinese readers (L1) and foreign second language Chinese learners (L2) using behavioral measures. Twenty local L1 proficient Chinese readers and eighteen L2 Chinese learners reading alphabetic script as their first language participated in the study. The L2 participants have reached a local Primary 2 Chinese reading proficiency. The participants completed a cross-modal homophone judgment task (HJ). They were asked to judge whether a prime syllable played via earphones matched with the pronunciation of a later visually displayed Chinese character. Manipulations were made in character regularity and the Match/Mismatch relationship between the prime syllable and character. Accuracy results demonstrated regularity effect in L2. Response latency results suggested regularity effect in both L1 and L2 participants. Most importantly, both group of participants judged the Irregular/Mismatch condition significantly slower than the Regular/Mismatch condition, and they judged the Irregular/Mismatch condition more slowly than the Irregular/Match condition. This could be explained in terms of the competition between the orthographic representations of the target character and that activated by the prime syllable. The results provided first time evidence of sub-lexical phonological processing in L1 proficient readers and L2 Chinese learners.