Phonology facilitates deeply opaque logographic writing

by Mio Yokoi, Kouji Takano, Kimihiro Nakamura

Phonological knowledge plays a pivotal role in many aspects of language processing, but it remains controversial whether it is required for writing. In the present study, we examined the issue by focusing on written production in an opaque logographic script (kanji) with highly irregular pronunciation rules, which allowed for a rigorous test of whether or not phonology contributes to writing. Using a phonological priming paradigm in two experiments, we measured response latency while participants orally named target pictures or wrote down their names in kanji. Each target was preceded by a phonographic character (kana) which represented the same sound (mora) as the beginning of the target name or a different mora. By manipulating the degree of phonological overlap between primes and target names (i.e., morae, consonants and vowels), we found that only the moraic overlap could speed up word production in logographic writing (Experiment 1). In contrast, naming response was facilitated by mora-overlap as well as vowel-overlap. This between-task difference in phonological encoding suggests that phonological codes for spoken production do not necessarily precede orthographic access during logographic writing. In Experiment 2, we further found that the facilitatory effects of moraic information did not differ in magnitude between writing and naming when primes were masked and presented more briefly, suggesting a net component of bottom-up phonological activation which contributes to logographic writing. Collectively, we propose that orthographic codes of kanji are accessed directly from semantics, whereas phonology plays a non-specific modulatory role to enhance neurocognitive systems involved in writing.