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1 - Phonological Awareness, Orthography, and Learning to Read Chinese

from Part One - Writing System/Neuro-cognitive Processing of Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

By
Jun-Ren Lee  and
Chu-Ren Huang
Edited by
Chu-Ren Huang ,
Yen-Hwei Lin ,
I-Hsuan Chen  and
Yu-Yin Hsu
Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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Summary

Phonological awareness refers to a speaker’s knowledge of the phonological structure of the language. The study of phonological awareness has traditionally been associated with the study of reading. As reading Chinese involves an orthography that does not directly encode phonology, the issue of phonological awareness in Chinese speakers and learners has been an intriguing issue. In this chapter, we examine this issue by synthesizing research from reading, orthography, phonology, and, most crucially, from recent studies in Chinese linguistics. In the process, we identify several strong arguments for phonological awareness for Mandarin speakers.

Keywords

Chinese character readingphonicsphonological awarenessreading development
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 3 - 22
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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