Effects of sentence constraint on processing of auditorily presented words in Chinese intermediate learners of the Japanese language : An experimental study with manipulation of orthographical and Phonological Similarities between Chinese and Japanese Kanji characters

The current study investigated the effects of sentence contextual constraint on auditory processing of Japanese kanji words in intermediate learners of the Japanese language whose native language was Chinese. In the current experiment, the degree of contextual constraint (high vs. low) of a preceding Japanese sentence (with a blank as a placeholder for a target word) and orthographical and phonological similarities of kanji words (i.e., the target words) were manipulated as independent factors. The response time of correctly performed trials in an auditory lexical decision task using the target words was measured. Similar to a previous study in advanced learners of the Japanese language (Fei & Matsumi, 2013), the results of the current experiment demonstrated that cognitive processing of Japanese kanji words that were presented auditorily varied depending on the level of contextual constraint of the preceding Japanese sentence. However, the effects of orthographical and phonological similarities on word processing were different from those observed in advanced learners. In addition, the results in both high and low sentence constraint conditions were different from those in the study of Fei (2015) who used a single word presentation paradigm. The effects of orthographical and phonological similarities on lexical information processing of Japanese kanji words that are presented auditorily appear to be impacted by context regardless of the degree of contextual constraint.