Chinese language is a system of visual signs where language is symbolized,
and each symbol or character is a morpheme which is the equivalent of the
English syllable. In Chinese language, words are
representd by a large number of visual symbols, known as characters. It
is estimated that children should have learned to recognise at least 4.000
different characters by the time they reach twelve years old. The number
of characters is that much because they represent morphemes rather than
phonemes. The structure of the syllable is commonly consonant - vowel (CV).
Also, many morphemes share the same syllable (CV), but this apparent confusion
is reduced in spoken Chinese by specific pitch patterns known as "tones".
There are 4 diferent tones in Mandarin and 9 in Cantonese (Hanley,
et al., 1999).
"The principles of formation of the character are derived from the six
categories of characters : pictographs, ideographs, compound ideographs,
phonetic compounds, loan characters, and analogous characters. Of these
characters, the phonetic compounds account for over
80 percent. Phonetic compounds have two parts, a phonetic, which
hints at its pronunciation, and a radical, which hints at its meaning.
The phonetic is like a rhyming clue, and the radical hints at the semantic
domain of the word. The initial and final parts of a character and
a system of tones play an important role in reading words and sentences.
The initial part is the way a character (syllable) begins, usually with
a consonant. The final part of a character usually consists of a vowel
or dipthong, with or without a consonant." (So,
D. & Siegel, L.S., 1997)
The basically morphemic Chinese language contains many phonetic elements
which may be used in reading. Why? Because when reading, the reader is
recalling the phonetic form of a spoken word / syllable or phoneme. Thus,
eventhough there is a great symbolic component, 80 percent is phonetic.
Furthermore, differences in phonetic would determine a different meaning
for a word, therefore, phonological skills appear to be really involved
in the process of reading.
"Cantonese and Mandarin are two Chinese dialects: Cantonese
is a dialect and in some senses a different language that Mandarin
Chinese (the official language). Cantonese has a similar syntactic structure
to Mandarin Chinese, but a completely different pronunciation, such that
speakers of one cannot understand the other language unless they have received
an intensive instruction on it. However, Cantonese
and Mandarin Chinese use the identical
writhing system so that speakers of either one of these have no difficulty
understanding text printed with Chinese characters." (So,
D. & Siegel, L.S., 1997)
Most of the studies conducted in Chinese that attempt to find which processes
are involved in reading acquisition and in a reading disability, have shown
consistent findings. It is believed that Chinese should not be a problem
for reading if the phonological abilities are the core of dyslexia, due
to the pictorial / logographic origins of the language. However, most of
the studies have shown that phonological skills are also involved in reading
Chinese.
So & Siegel
conducted a longitudinal study in Hong Kong (children from 1st to 4 grade)
and concluded that poor readers showed a significant lag in the development
of phonological skills and semantic processing.
Therefore, in both languages, phonological skills develop gradually,
approximately between 6 to 10 years of age in normal readers. However poor
readers show a significant lag in the development of these skills.
Another fact is that in both languages a big amount of rote memory and
orthographic
strategies are needed in order to acquire fluency in reading, whereas
in the other languages, alphabetic strategies are enough for decoding purposes.
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