Threshold-style processing of Chinese characters for adult second-language learners

To assess the learning of word form and meaning in an unfamiliar writing system, we carried out primed-naming experiments with learners of Chinese at the end of their first and second terms in a Chinese class at an American university. The subjects were required to name a target Chinese character after a prime character had been presented for 500 msec. There were three priming conditions defined by the relation between the prime and the target: orthographically similar, homophonic, and semantically related. At the end of the first term, there was a significant facilitation for naming speed in the orthographic condition, but not in the homophonic or semantic conditions. However, at the end of the second term, orthographical facilitation disappeared. Instead, naming speed was facilitated by semantically related primes. A threshold-style framework was proposed to illustrate the processing of Chinese orthography, phonology, and semantics by second-language learners.