Identifying Useful Phonetic Components of kanji for Learners of Japanese

The role of kanji phonetic components in the reading of Japanese words written with multiple kanji characters (kanji words) has been discussed for decades. Despite relevant research suggesting the potential usefulness of the phonological information provided by phonetic components in reading kanji w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Japanese language and literature 2013-10, Vol.47 (2), p.235-272
Main Authors: Toyoda, Etsuko, Firdaus, Arief Muhammad, Kano, Chieko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dictionaries
Learning
Orthographies
Phonetics
Phonology
Pronunciation
Second language learning
Vocabulary
Words
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The role of kanji phonetic components in the reading of Japanese words written with multiple kanji characters (kanji words) has been discussed for decades. Despite relevant research suggesting the potential usefulness of the phonological information provided by phonetic components in reading kanji words, they are being under utilized in the learning/teaching of the Japanese language as a second/foreign language due to the complex nature of phonetic components, which exhibit varied degrees of reliability and applicability. This project evaluates the usefulness (reliability and applicability) of phonetic components in reading kanji words likely to be encountered by learners of Japanese as a second/foreign language. In this paper, we argue for the need to identify phonetic components that are useful for learners of Japanese, especially for those learners with an alphabetic background, and we demonstrate which phonetic components warrant spending time to learn/teach them by analyzing the reliability and applicability of each phonetic component that learners are likely to encounter. To this end, we create a comprehensive database comprised of 174 potentially useful phonetic components. From the data, we identify 119 useful phonetic components for learners of Japanese in reading kanji words.
ISSN:1536-7827