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how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-12
Tangent from comments here. Here are one or two links that have informed the refinement of my views on learning kanji, writing, literacy, et cetera. Feel free to post your own links for the reference of others. I'll number them as they are for easier reference. Also, with the links that lead only to abstracts, many of those titles can be Googled with links to full versions elsewhere.
1 Between Script and Pictures in Japan
2 There is No Language Instinct
3 Deaf Signers Who Know Japanese Remember Words and Numbers More Effectively Than Deaf Signers Who Know English
4 Neural representation of kana, kanji, and Arabic numbers in native Japanese speakers
5 Kanji: The Visual Metaphor
6 A Case in Haiku
7 Cognitive Effects of the LV Approach in Kanji Learners: A Novel Approach Using Learner’s Personal Visual Cognition
8 Literacy and Orality
9 Word naming and psycholinguistic norms: Chinese
10 Semantic effects in word naming: Evidence from English and Japanese Kanji
11 An Analysis of Imageability for Single Character Kanji Words with ON and KUN Pronunciations
12 Subliminal Convergence of Kanji and Kana Words: Further Evidence for Functional Parcellation of the Posterior Temporal Cortex in Visual Word Perception
13 The Time Course of Semantic and Phonological Access in Naming Kana and Kanji Words
14 Insights on How Readers. Process Japanese. Orthography in Two Different. Contexts: Universality in the Reading
15 Semantic involvement in the lexical and sentence processing of Japanese Kanji
16 Kanji versus Kana: neuropsychological correlates of the Japanese writing system
17 The role of interword spacing in reading Japanese: An eye movement study
18 The Stroop effect in kana and kanji scripts in native Japanese speakers: An fMRI study
19 Logographic Kanji versus Phonographic Kana in Literacy Acquisition
20 Modulation of the visual word retrieval system in writing: a functional MRI study on the Japanese orthographies
21 An Experimental Study of Kanji Information Processing
22 The sensitivity of native Japanese speakers to On and Kun kanji readings
23 Change in Script Usage in Japanese
24 An investigation into the structure and acquisition of orthographic knowledge: Evidence from cross-script Kanji-Hiragana priming
25 Multisensory Integration
26 Evidence against 'units of perception'
27 Orthographic puns: The case of Japanese kyoka
28 Teaching Japanese Toddlers to Read Kanji and Kana
29 A Japanese Perspective on Literacy and Biliteracy: A National Paper of Japan
30 Language and society in Japan
31 Computers vs. Literacy
32 Computers improve kanji reading, degrade writing
33 How iconic are Chinese characters?
34 'Blending' and an Interpretation of Haiku: A Cognitive Approach
35 Recognition and reading aloud of kana and kanji word: An fMRI study
36 Implicit and explicit processing of kanji and kana words and non-words studied with fMRI
37 A review of psychological studies of kana and kanji processing : A single phonological route to a multiple interactive activation
38 Homophonic and semantic priming of Japanese kanji words
39 Seeing ‘water’ in ‘desert’: Semantic radical activation in visual Japanese compound recognition
40 The Consistency of Multiple-Pronunciation Effects in Reading: The Case of Japanese Logographs
41 The semantic effect on retrieval of radicals in logographic characters
42 Are whole word kanji easier to learn than syllable kana?
43 Pigs will be chickens: reply to Tzeng and Singer
44 The Science of Word Recognition
45 The DRC Model of Visual Word Recognition and Reading Aloud
46 Letter-by-letter processing in the phonological conversion of multi-letter graphemes
47 The Role of Sublexical Graphemic Processing in Reading
48 An Investigation into Kanji Character Discrimination Process from EEG Signals
49 Neuromagnetic signals associated with reading a kanji character formed by combining two kanji radicals
50 Different interhemispheric transfer of kanji and kana writing evidenced by a case with left unilateral agraphia without apraxia
51 Chinese and Western dyslexics have different affected brain regions
52 Conversion of semantic information into phonological representation: a function in left posterior basal temporal area
53 Word Recognition Depends on Script [Edit: Corrected 404, though this link is probably repeated below anyway and you could have Googled the title.]
54 Lexical Access in Japanese
55 Positron emission tomography scans on kanji and kana
56 Perceptual Coherence of Chinese Characters: Orthographic Satiation and Disorganization
57 Reading in two writing systems: Accommodation and assimilation of the brain's reading network
58 An implicit test of Chinese orthographic satiation
59 Delays produced by prolonged viewing in the recognition of Kanji characters: analysis of the "Gestaltzerfall" phenomenon
60 Rethinking Writing
61 Lack of Phonological Mediation in a Semantic Categorization Task
62 Homophonic and Semantic Priming of Japanese Kanji Words: A Time Course Study
63 The remarkable inefficiency of word recognition
64 Literacy and Metalinguistic Awareness: A Cross-Cultural Study
65 Affective Learning: A Manifesto
66 The Neural System Underlying Chinese Logograph Reading
67 Secondary Orality
68 What Writing Represents
69 Writing Systems (Intro: "Writing and Linguistics'')
70 Flow
71 Metaphor and Iconicity (pp. 213-246, 225) Edit: New link, no preview, unfortunately.
72 Of Grammatology
73 Derrida on Karatani
74 Han-liang Chang on Derrida Edit: New link.
75 Sound, Scripts, and Styles: Kanbun kundokutai and the National Language Reforms of 1880s Japan
76 Nationalism and Écriture
77 Patterns of manga literacy and discourse
78 The Effects of Stroke Order and Radicals on the Knowledge of Japanese Kanji Orthography, Phonology and Semantics
79 An investigation of the recognition process for jukugo by use of priming paradigms
From other posts (some redundancies):
80 The Effect of Kana Literacy Acquisition on the Speech Segmentation Unit Used by Japanese Young Children
Phonological Analysis Abilities of Chinese and Japanese Children
Kana literacy acquisition and speech segmentation units
Can orthography influence second language syllabic segmentation?: Japanese epenthetic vowels and French consonantal clusters
Orthography shapes the perception of speech
85 Orthographic influences in spoken word recognition
Orthography, vision, and phonemic awareness
What Writing Represents
Reading spoken words: Orthographic effects in auditory priming
Use orthography in L2 auditory word learning
90 The remarkable inefficiency of word recognition (Nature)
The Reading Brain
Word Recognition Depends on Script
The Relationship between Phonemic Awareness and Cue Weighting in Speech Perception
Orthographic input and second language phonology
95 Effects of hanyu pinyin on pronunciation in learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language
Involvement of motor cortices in retrieval of kanji studied by functional MRI
Dysgraphia: Cognitive processes, remediation, and neural substrates
Transient Functional Suppression and Facilitation of Japanese Ideogram Writing Induced by Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Posterior Inferior Temporal Cortex
The Spacing Effect in Aircraft Recognition
100 Kanji Knowledge as Read-Only vs. Write-Only
Action Recognition in the Premotor Cortex
The case for sensorimotor coding in working memory
SR as Priming/Conditioning
Mental Time-Lines Follow Writing Direction
105 Language-based Rehearsal Loop in the Visuospatial Modality
Visual Motion Sensitivity and Literacy Skills in Japanese
Logographic Kanji versus Phonographic Kana in Literacy Acquisition
Visual presentation of single letters activates a premotor area involved in writing
Premotor activations in response to visually presented single letters depend on the hand used to write: a study on left-handers
110 Spacing practice sessions across days benefits the learning of motor skills
how the brain processes kanji - liosama - 2009-12-12
Ok someone ban nest0r cause he just ruined my entire holidays.
I had so much planned
So many videos, so many movies, so many potential dates (?)
now i see 110 links to things
All in favour say aye
Aye
how the brain processes kanji - hknamida - 2009-12-12
liosama Wrote:Ok someone ban nest0r cause he just ruined my entire holidays.I have nothing against nest0r, but sure, I'll jump on this bandwagon and see where it takes me.
I had so much planned
So many videos, so many movies, so many potential dates (?)
now i see 110 links to things
All in favour say aye
Aye
Aye!
how the brain processes kanji - jonjimbo2000 - 2009-12-12
All I can say is that's dedication - how long did it take to create that post. Amazing!
PS Aye
how the brain processes kanji - Thora - 2009-12-12
Centralized ammo Nestor? (See HBPK, Post 1, #199)
thanks btw
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-12
Thora Wrote:Centralized ammo Nestor? (See HBPK, Post 1, #199)Indeed. I tired of always rambling using jargon people could Google as keywords because I was too lazy to link, hehe.
thanks btw
PS - Sorry liosama. If I wasted my free time recently by writing epic comments, it's only fair to distract others too.
how the brain processes kanji - yudantaiteki - 2009-12-12
This is just more obfuscation -- some of those links are 404, and others don't seem to clearly be connected to what points you're trying to make (not that I claim to understand them).
For instance:
http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2005/Tomoda.html
This has nothing to do with the brain processing kanji, it's just about how the use of the three scripts has changed in the past few decades.
This:
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/126/3/632
and others like it only show that kanji have some different processing than other scripts, but not that this shows any sort of superiority of kanji or writing over speech. The abstract to the above article even says "The left posterior basal temporal area, therefore, has an important function of connecting visual semantic information into phonological representation."
how the brain processes kanji - ropsta - 2009-12-13
Holy F#@*ing God man!!!
Dude... what did I do? What did I do.....?
*falls into pit of despair*
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-13
yudantaiteki Wrote:This is just more obfuscation -- some of those links are 404, and others don't seem to clearly be connected to what points you're trying to make (not that I claim to understand them).You sure respond and argue a lot for someone who doesn't understand my points. You even did it with this article you've quoted, as quoted further down.
For instance:
http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2005/Tomoda.html
This has nothing to do with the brain processing kanji, it's just about how the use of the three scripts has changed in the past few decades.
This:
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/126/3/632
and others like it only show that kanji have some different processing than other scripts, but not that this shows any sort of superiority of kanji or writing over speech. The abstract to the above article even says "The left posterior basal temporal area, therefore, has an important function of connecting visual semantic information into phonological representation."
Obfuscation how? I clearly stated that these are what informed my opinions, pointed to where my opinions are. You can click and read for yourself. Where are the 404s? I haven't seen them. Mostly likely the few there are can be Googled by their title. How does the existence of 404s alongside the majority of healthy links, filled with keywords and ideas you can use to inform your own research make the post, um, whatever your point was?
Not all of the links are intended to reflect and precisely support my opinions, as I said, they informed my views, and others might find them useful. Many of them are general information links. I'm sorry I didn't invest more time in clarifying the purpose of each one, but I imagined readers could discover this on their own. Posting 110 links took a lot of effort and motivation out of me. ;p They are 'selective' in that they reflect my personal research and I think they lead to the same conclusions I came to, but they aren't obscurantist.
The article you quoted so selectively, apparently without reading outside of your narrow interpretation, reflects what I have been saying, and also provides a nice overview on overall research. As I've been saying, there's the Orthography<-->Semantic path (kanji-->meaning works heavily in this way), Orthography<-->Phonetic (kana/letters/et cetera), ie they operate independently, yet you've also got Semantic<-->Phonetic. They all interact, but this depends on the writing system, how you've learned them, and how you're reading at the time. There's different models, but most of them are similar, and the ones that look at kanji suggest this difference most strongly.
I consider writing to be superior to speech in that it's a separate medium for the articulation of meaning that is 'more than' speech, incorporating other modalities, and is more flexible, even as it's informed by sound and reflects back on speech. Thus I consider logographs mixed with phonographs to be the fullest embrace of what writing can do, the latter essential because it allows for flexibility in adapting speech to writing and vice versa, and the former because it expands upon it. I think this mix represents the potential of communication best and ought to be capitalized upon, rather than conservatively trying to hold writing down because of misconceptions about the role of literacy amongst humankind.
Now from the article you quoted:
"... The fact that only kanji reading was impaired and not kana suggests that these two sets of characters are processed in a non-identical manner in the brain. In Japanese orthography, each kana letter has a single phonological value but does not evoke semantic connotations. Kanji characters, on the contrary, are associated with semantic entities and their pronunciation usually depends on the context."
"Our finding that reading of phonetic entities (kana) is intact while reading of semantic ones (kanji) is impaired under electric stimulation of the BTLA clearly shows that morphograms and syllabograms are processed in different pathways. Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 4, copying was not impaired for either kanji or kana, suggesting that the difference observed is not caused simply by what the subject saw, but by how her brain processed what was seen depending on the type of task."
"Our study using electric stimulation as a direct method provides clear evidence that, in Japanese, the semantic and the phonetic aspect of kanji are processed in different pathways, not identical to each other."
"Since the electrodes in our study covered the inferior temporal area, it is postulated that kanji is processed in the ventral pathway. Although the dorsal pathway was not studied here, kana may be processed in the dorsal pathway because both the alphabet and kana represent sound."
"As discussed in the previous sections, some words in Japanese have a strong conceptual and/or cultural association among certain groups. Therefore, when the patient conceptually understood a kanji word while failing to match it with the correct phonological representation, it is highly likely that a false representing sound comes from one of the words in such a group instead of the sound of a word totally unrelated to the correct one. A good example is the session in which a test item (pronounced as ‘ma-tsu’, meaning a pine tree) was mistakenly called as ‘ta-ke’ (written as , meaning bamboo) under electric stimulation. Both are familiar and typical in the picturesque scenery of the countryside or in traditional Japanese gardens."
"Although the two separate terms are used for paraphasia observed in kanji reading and picture naming in this study, both involve the conceptual understanding (or semantic information in a broad sense) of what the patient sees and their representing sounds. It can safely be assumed, therefore, that the process and mechanism involved here for errors in kanji reading and picture naming are identical, and the only difference is the origin of a false representing sound, i.e. a culturally connected group of words in the case of kanji reading versus the name of object which was presented just before in the case of picture naming.
Based on the fact that both kanji reading and picture naming were impaired by electric stimulation in almost the same way, the study provides a clear understanding of how these two distinctly different functions, reading words and naming objects, are processed in a similar manner in the brain. The results here strongly indicate that one of the func tions of the left posterior basal temporal area is the conversion of visual stimuli carrying semantic information into their phonological representations."
"Our study using direct electric stimulation significantly improves the understanding of what is strongly related to multiplicity of domains and/or systems involved in the processing architecture in the brain."
how the brain processes kanji - vileru - 2009-12-13
nest0r Wrote:I consider writing to be superior to speech in that it's a separate medium for the articulation of meaning that is 'more than' speech, incorporating other modalities, and is more flexible, even as it's informed by sound and reflects back on speech.While writing incorporates other modalities that cannot be found in speech, the same can be said of speech. Assuming that "modalities" refers to modes of communicating meaning, it is clear that modalities present in speech, such as inflection or rhythm, are excluded from writing.
I'm curious as to your other point as well. How is writing more flexible than speech? I'm sure I could find an explanation in one of the linked articles, but it seems excessive to flip through over a hundred articles to answer such a question.
On another note, whether writing is superior to speech in terms of modalities and flexibility depends greatly on how "writing" and "speech" are defined. What does "writing" include and what does "speech" include? These are important questions to answer.
nest0r Wrote:I think this mix represents the potential of communication best and ought to be capitalized upon, rather than conservatively trying to hold writing down because of misconceptions about the role of literacy amongst humankind.Again, this point interests me. What misconceptions about the role of literacy are you speaking of?
At any rate, your argument is interesting and worth exploring for its practical implications. However, it seems like there's some specific context that provoked your post. If you don't mind, could you briefly explain that context (if there is one) so I can better understand your intent?
how the brain processes kanji - vosmiura - 2009-12-14
The thread should be called "how nest0r's brain avoids Japanese study, and why his Japanese still sucks"
.
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-14
vileru Wrote:Last post ever. Prepare yourself for an epic lecture-essay to finally consolidate my views. ^_^nest0r Wrote:I consider writing to be superior to speech in that it's a separate medium for the articulation of meaning that is 'more than' speech, incorporating other modalities, and is more flexible, even as it's informed by sound and reflects back on speech.While writing incorporates other modalities that cannot be found in speech, the same can be said of speech. Assuming that "modalities" refers to modes of communicating meaning, it is clear that modalities present in speech, such as inflection or rhythm, are excluded from writing.
I'm curious as to your other point as well. How is writing more flexible than speech? I'm sure I could find an explanation in one of the linked articles, but it seems excessive to flip through over a hundred articles to answer such a question.
On another note, whether writing is superior to speech in terms of modalities and flexibility depends greatly on how "writing" and "speech" are defined. What does "writing" include and what does "speech" include? These are important questions to answer.
nest0r Wrote:I think this mix represents the potential of communication best and ought to be capitalized upon, rather than conservatively trying to hold writing down because of misconceptions about the role of literacy amongst humankind.Again, this point interests me. What misconceptions about the role of literacy are you speaking of?
At any rate, your argument is interesting and worth exploring for its practical implications. However, it seems like there's some specific context that provoked your post. If you don't mind, could you briefly explain that context (if there is one) so I can better understand your intent?
I feel the misconception of literacy stems from the belief in the primacy of speech, that writing is subordinate to speech. Some believe that writing is 'primary' as in 'more important' rather than 'primary' as in 'first', presumably because it was invented late in humanity's biological evolution and because individuals learn to speak before learning to write, being born with tongues and ears and other capacities for speech and language, as humans are wont to do.
This despite the fact that the world is a world of what Ong would call 'secondary orality': writing on a general and culturally specific level is omnipresent, and has been, increasingly so, for a while now, as culture evolves rather quickly (in many ways thanks to writing). Also, writing shapes language as people use it, and as it's taught. In other words, the terms we learn, the grammar that's acceptable, the very nature of how ideas are analyzed and represented to ourselves and others, are increasingly impacted as literacy--i.e. language--spreads through technology (technology is as natural as speech, by the way).
Others, such as David R. Olson or Florian Coulmas, discuss an incorrect assumption--in declaring that writing was designed to represent sound and is thus subordinate to it--that we had metalinguistic awareness to begin with, rather than developing it alongside writing, and as language itself develops with writing. Various studies, as I've linked previously, demonstrate how literacy actually refines our phonetic awareness and impacts our speech perception and our pronunciation.
There's a misconception by phonocentrists, as those who privilege speech over writing were dubbed by Derrida in "Of Grammatology", that due to this conception of writing as speech written down, it must primarily be phonetic, reflecting speech precisely. The reception and expression of meaning through textualized sound is then seen as defining literacy, and that if one visually extends text beyond what is strictly, minimally required for the meaningful representation of sound, this is an unjustifiable complexity; a baroque, superficial ornamentation, impractical, inefficient. As if aesthetics--form--can be objectively separated from content and utility, when in fact the content of communication itself is the form of a mind that has emerged from a distributed system amidst the brain and environment.
Thus this mistakenly renders the phonographic alphabet the highest evolution (as if evolution is Lamarckian, universally progressive) of writing systems, being a relatively direct and singular mapping of grapheme to phoneme (letter to sound). This is a mistake of the phonocentrists, I think mainly due to Western influence on modern linguistics, as loathe as I am to acknowledge illusory East/West distinctions. Though in terms of general usage, I think it's a universal issue.
I believe this is partially influenced by linguistic nativism, and it's a variant of the always pitiable 'evolutionary psychology' which so comically often tries to code culture in biological terms far beyond its paltry means. It presumes that there is a particular language acquisition device in the brain with an inbuilt universal grammar. This is a questionable scientific view with many critics, especially as more and more dynamic notions of the brain and mind are revealed through research into unity and modularity and embodied cognition. This you might research on your own via the jargon I used, if you aren't already familiar. My operative presupposition is that language is a multisensory, emergent system of the mind between and of humans and their environments. I'm inclined to believe concepts such as those of Brian MacWhinney.
I think of speech as a medium contained within the modalities of sound. It's a middleman to sound, shaped by people to communicate meaning. Sometimes it's accompanied by observable gestures, lip movements, expressions, et cetera, occurring with a sense of immediacy, but primarily it's auditory. It's an asymmetrical, specialized aural medium in the greater scheme of things, though studies do show how speech perception is enhanced by the aforementioned integration of other senses (see the 'McGurk effect'). That is to say, humans are evolutionarily optimized for multisensory processing in a far broader fashion--primarily visual, from what I've read (predators and all that).
I mention this multisensory integration because I believe that at every nested level we're using complementary senses such as with the 'levels of processing' effect for elaborate encoding and rehearsal (complex = easier) to enrich our learning, and that belief informs my approach to study. I will also mention that we remember things better in the same context that we learned them (hence my fixation on bringing this multisensory environment, as similar to language as possible, to the SRS). See Medina's "Brain Rules" for an accessible summation of this research--references at his site. (I suppose technically, I prefer video + text together. ;p)
This is why I assign primacy to a communicative matrix which most fully embodies all the senses and their nuances as determined by thought, extending them, empowering the user of such a matrix. At any rate, speech itself, to cite Ong again, only exists when it's going out of existence. It's a temporal dynamic by its nature, even if recorded for pausing and playback.
Call writing such a matrix, or a central hub or major node, a meta-medium. At least until we all become telepathic synaesthetes through stolen alien technology. Everything that speech uses as its specialty informs writing, writing being enabled by the visual sense--evolutionarily primary as I mentioned above. Obviously speech's immediate aural richness is processed more directly, and its use of a major sense makes it essential for writing and communication, but only as a part of a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. Hence my references to speech as a subordinate specialization that is always useful and requires phonographs to enable the flexibility of writing.
That's why I'm recommending a 'mixed' system and lauding the virtues of kana + kanji. However, intrinsic to the medium of writing is that it's infinitely extendable, static text inscribed in space. This lends it an abstract text-ure, a tactility, as it allows the reader to mentally convert and blend sound and vision and imaginary environments. This authorial content is far more modifiable and autonomous in the literate domain than in speech, as its dynamic interiority requires an activation by the reader transducing it on their own time, recruiting their senses and memories. Those being informed by multisensory experience and thought, including the multitude of sounds and voices we have heard and can shape into our own internal voices beyond an immediate, particular speaker. But when writing in Japanese, it's not only sound that's being articulated, it's meaning expressed through icons as well, kanji assigned a meaningful textural, spatial element.
With phonographs--letters or kana, processed in the dorsal area of the brain--they are visually processed in parallel as individual graphemes, and as they're learned and used, they have strong serial phonetic mappings, so not only do they quickly trigger sound associations, but they have very little semantic association until individually processed and arranged as patterns that form familiar words, giving the illusion of whole-word recognition.
In contrast, logographs--in the case of kanji processed in the ventral area of the brain--take advantage of our ability to cognitively process writing as more than sound. They have strong, direct routes to meaning as well as sound in parallel, and seem to be immediately processed as icons as a gestalt whole, though there's some interesting research on how radicals are processed and can contribute to semantic 'priming' as well. The kanji themselves certainly allow for overall priming and pattern recognition when switching scripts amidst continuous reading. I'm uncertain how much this is enabled by how kana are written, offspring of kanji, and how this might relate to forming logograms out of alphabet letters (as I often suggest as a half-joke).
Thus in comparison to the alphabet letters, kanji equalize the matrix of writing, which in the case of the alphabet is asymmetrically skewed and interfered with (having to take the long way to meaning when sight-reading with letters, or treating kanji as only overly elaborate phonetic symbols) both by a limitation to phonographs and by the dominant phonocentrist perspective that shapes meta/linguistic perception and learning in many cultures. Kanji effect this balance, I feel, by allowing for parallel processing of the visuospatial--->semantic alongside the phonetic, a complementary increase in complexity. Actually not only that, but there are strong sensorimotor associations through strokes as well, which contribute to representations of kanji in the brain and can be enhanced through spaced repetition, I believe. (See above links.) Thus there's even more of a textural textual element.
Literacy then encompasses rich layers in a mixed writing system, the added articulation of meaning through text itself, rather than merely the articulation of meaning through speech written down, even as writing interacts with speech and uses it in addition to its other modalities. It uses all, is limited by none. I think that communicating in all the modalities that compose thought itself through the 'global neuronal workspace' (Dehaene) or 'working memory' (as being phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad), in other words communicating as close to the context of thought itself, is the best way to exchange information routed through the senses we use daily.
The context this springs from is the stagnant, obsolescent rhetoric about Japanese's inefficiency and need for reform judged from a narrow phonocentric hierarchical perspective, and various other oversimplified, arrogantly absolutist statements about language that conservatively react to and center around biology rather than proactively decentralizing biology and culture. Kanji and their readings are victimized in particular as folks obsess over their imprecise relations and view orthographic complexity outside of spelling as unnecessarily complex and thus objectively harder according to phonocentric standards of literacy. With those misguided standards, appreciation of kanji is categorized as irrational enchantment with pretty chinoiserie.
Not only do I think this perspective is ethnocentric and bafflingly ignorant amongst intelligent, learned people I respect; it's uneven and requiring counterbalance, and in my views on 'affective learning' and 'flow' I feel it is detrimental and discouraging to learners to tell them they're learning an inferior writing system when in fact, if it must be a 'versus' equation, the mixed phonographic/logographic writing system could be argued (as I am doing) as objectively superior and more balanced. No languages are perfect, but I think it's best to use open-minded, 'descriptive' analyses in conjunction with usage to negotiate organic change. I also think being appropriative with writing systems like Japanese is, then narrowing and specializing from there, is more effective.
I feel that having a richer definition of literacy allows for a broader, more nuanced gradient of multiliteracy applications, empowering folks, if they can rethink literacy to take advantage of kanji + kana (+ ローマ字). Likewise more elaborate can mean easier, more efficient, more expressive. If others look at Japanese from the perspective of the Japanese orthography and cognitive science, it will benefit their practical and affective learning strategies, understanding how the brain processes the scripts, and likely help with their general linguistic views.
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-14
vosmiura Wrote:The thread should be called "how nest0r's brain avoids Japanese study, and why his Japanese still sucks"I know. 8'( Sorry vos, from now on, it's less self-centered lecturing, more self-centered study for me.
how the brain processes kanji - vosmiura - 2009-12-14
Quote:I consider writing to be superior to speech in that it's a separate medium for the articulation of meaning that is 'more than' speech, incorporating other modalities, and is more flexible, even as it's informed by sound and reflects back on speech. Thus I consider logographs mixed with phonographs to be the fullest embrace of what writing can do, the latter essential because it allows for flexibility in adapting speech to writing and vice versa, and the former because it expands upon it. I think this mix represents the potential of communication best and ought to be capitalized upon, rather than conservatively trying to hold writing down because of misconceptions about the role of literacy amongst humankind.More can mean better, but it can also mean worse, or superfluous. Just because kanji utilizes a different part of the brain than phonetic writing, does not by itself say anything about which is better or more efficient; it's just different. I'm sure the case can be argued either way from multiple perspectives; I'm not going to say my opinion. But I am interested, is there any notable evidence that Japanese writing empowers humankind in ways that the poor rest of humanity that doesn't write Japanese is missing out on? I mean, forget about the "p0t3ntialz" of kanji to enrich humanities literacy... show me the money.
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-14
vosmiura Wrote:More can mean better, but it can also mean worse, or superfluous. Just because kanji utilizes a different part of the brain than phonetic writing, does not by itself say anything about which is better or more efficient; it's just different. I'm sure the case can be argued either way from multiple perspectives; I'm not going to say my opinion. But I am interested, is there any notable evidence that Japanese writing empowers humankind in ways that the poor rest of humanity that doesn't write Japanese is missing out on? I mean, forget about the "p0t3ntialz" of kanji to enrich humanities literacy... show me the money.Hey vos, it seems you've misread me. Understandable, as it's me, nest0r, after all. Just glance at the wall of text and ignore. A couple people manage to decipher my writing, so I'm okay with that 1 in a million.
My last comment, I feel, satisfactorily expands upon or effectively counters what you have said. Other than that, because it seems my counterbalancing act is actually unbalancing for some: I never said Japanese writing, having kanji, is thus superior and empowers humankind.
Also, I find it more comical--in a 'laughing at you' way--that you think I said that and confidently made a joke about it than your joke poking fun at me itself, because your making it, and the arguments and accusations a couple others have thrown at me, ironically represent and are engendered by the very narrow perspective I--and you--are arguing against. No disrespect (because it's my fault for writing so poorly). ;p
how the brain processes kanji - TaylorSan - 2009-12-14
Whoah! I will never debate ya nest0r, that's....uh...gah...bah...(I'm reduced to nonsensical muttering...)
すごいい！
Can you recommend, say 3-5 of the best links there?
I'm interested in the topic, but that's too much for me to bite off. But my hat's off...
how the brain processes kanji - jajaaan - 2009-12-14
Being able to state your point with concision is a mark of intelligence.
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-14
TaylorSan Wrote:Whoah! I will never debate ya nest0r, that's....uh...gah...bah...(I'm reduced to nonsensical muttering...)Hmmm, maybe try...
すごいい！
Can you recommend, say 3-5 of the best links there?
I'm interested in the topic, but that's too much for me to bite off. But my hat's off...
1, 5, 10, 12, 19, 25, 27, 30, 37, 52, 53, 56, 68-71, 77, 91, 100...
No particular order. ;p
how the brain processes kanji - Blahah - 2009-12-14
jajaaan Wrote:Being able to state your point with concision is a mark of intelligence.zing!
how the brain processes kanji - theasianpleaser - 2009-12-14
jajaaan Wrote:Being able to state your point with concision is a mark of intelligence.Depending on the situation, I can do this with a split second change of facial expression. Am I intelligent, emotional, or both?
how the brain processes kanji - magamo - 2009-12-14
jajaaan Wrote:Being able to state your point with concision is a mark of intelligence.assuming that the reader/listener has done a comparable amount of research or that s/he can be satisfied with a dumbed down summary.
how the brain processes kanji - TaylorSan - 2009-12-15
Cool nest0r....I'll check some of those out later in the week when I have some time to. Interesting stuff.
how the brain processes kanji - Thora - 2009-12-15
jajaaan Wrote:Being able to state your point with concision is a mark of intelligence.Nestor is a dummy!! Nestor is dummy!! nah na na nah nah
how the brain processes kanji - nest0r - 2009-12-15
8'(
how the brain processes kanji - vix86 - 2010-03-25
I debated on creating a new thread, decided I'll simply bump this one.
Do any of the links above address the question of "What's a good guideline for failing vocab/kanji? Such that it improves efficiency and ensures proper reinforcement"?
My problem (and I may have made a post on this), is I'm never sure whether to fail a card where I come close to the proper pronunciation of a card. Ex: 登場人物-とうじょうじんぶつ I always think its とうじょう＿にん＿ぶつ. Or I get 'close' like 崩れーくずれ I'll think "たずれ.” Stuff like this happens on 10% of my cards and I get stuck sometimes up to 2 minutes debating whether to completely pass it or pass it as "hard" and tell my self "I'll get it next time" which rarely happens. So I end up passing it 2-3 times and then failing them (just to avoid leech flags). Its worth noting I always know what the words mean, I just fumble pronunciation. I want to adapt a "If in doubt, fail"-policy but it'll just add more cards to my reviews that I may not need.
I'm just curious if there has been any investigation in the academic field on the issue.