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Reading Chinese and Reading English: Similarities, Differences, and Second-Language Reading

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The Varieties of Orthographic Knowledge

Part of the book series: Neuropsychology and Cognition ((NPCO,volume 8))

Abstract

Any theory of the relation of reading processes to orthography must be able to account for the reading of Chinese, an orthography used by more people than any other in the world (Hoosain, 1991). Because Chinese orthography differs radically from the alphabetic systems on which most of our conclusions about the cognitive psychology of literacy have been based, the study of Chinese provides opportunities to test the extent to which universal characteristics of the human mind constrain the way any written language is processed and to identify ways in which readers may have adapted their processing to variations in the language they read. Answers to these fundamental questions are beginning to emerge as more scholars who are fluent in Chinese become involved in literacy research.1

The second and third authors are Taiwanese and native readers of Chinese. Two of the original studies reported here were supported by grants to the first author from the Iowa Measurement Research Foundation.

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Jackson, N.E., Lu, WH., Ju, D. (1994). Reading Chinese and Reading English: Similarities, Differences, and Second-Language Reading. In: Berninger, V.W. (eds) The Varieties of Orthographic Knowledge. Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3492-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3492-9_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4460-0

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