Oral spelling and writing in a logographic language: insights from a Chinese dysgraphic individual

The oral spelling process for logographic languages such as Chinese is intrinsically different from alphabetic languages. In Chinese only a subset of orthographic components are pronounceable and their phonological identities (i.e., component names) do not always correspond to the sound of the whole characters. We show that such phonological identities can nevertheless be selectively preserved when visual-motoric compositions are lost. We report a Chinese right-handed dysgraphic individual with left temporal and occipital damage, MZG, who was severely impaired in writing Chinese characters but was able to orally spell the same characters using the names of pronounceable components. MZG's writing deficit arose at the level of processing that is dedicated to the retrieval of the shapes (allographics) of the writing components. Such patterns show that phonological identities of components are part of the orthographic representation of Chinese characters, and that dissociation between oral and written spelling modalities is universal across different script systems. The temporal and occipital lobes in the language-dominant hemisphere are possibly important regions for allographic conversion in writing.