Phonogram Character Reliance on Orthography and Phonology in Lexical Access: A Comparative Study of L1 speakers and L2 Learners

摘要: There has been ongoing debate over whether there exists a reliance on phonology in accessing Chinese characters. It also remains unclear what the patterns of orthography–phonology reliance are among Chinese Second Language (L2) learners. Therefore, this study uses phonograms—characters in which pronunciation is most easily inferred from orthography—to explore the role of phonology in Chinese character access, while examining whether intermediate-level Chinese L2 learners from alphabetic language backgrounds have developed a reliance pattern that adapts to the characteristics of Chinese, similar to that of Chinese L1 speakers. Experiment 1 found that the effect of orthography appeared in gaze duration and extended to total fixation duration, while the effect of phonology only appeared in total fixation duration. However, the effect of phonology was greater than that of orthography. Additionally, the phonological effect in L1 speakers was greater than in L2 learners. After improving experimental manipulations, Experiment 2 also found that the orthographic effect appeared earlier than the phonological effect, but the orthographic effect was larger than the phonological effect. These results indicate that access of phonogram characters rely on both orthography and phonology, but orthography remains a more crucial cue. Intermediate-level L2 learners have largely developed a reliance pattern specific to Chinese characters, which is more reliant on orthography. This study extends the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis to second language processing and has significant implications for Chinese character teaching in Chinese L2 contexts.