On the Basic Information Processing Unit in Chinese Reading

Abstract

Abstract: Reading is a cognitive activity in which readers have to extract semantic from text and then integrate them into meaningful information. What is the basic unit that readers use to get information? As we all know that there are spaces between words in the alphabetic language. Words are generally considered as the basic unit of information processing. However, there is no space or other visual cues in Chinese writing system can be used as a word boundary. What′s more, Chinese readers even don′t know what a word is. There are different opinions on the basic information processing unit in Chinese reading characters, words, phrases, subjective words and so on. In this paper, we summarized related studies, and discussed the questions which should be answered probably in the future.

Key words: Chinese reading, basic information processing unit, word segmentation.

摘要： 阅读是读者依次提取信息和整合信息的认知活动,读者是以什么作为基本单元去加工信息的?拼音文字的书写系统中存在词间空格,词被普遍认为是基本的信息加工单元,然而汉语文本中没有类似明显的边界信息,而且读者的词意识模糊。研究者们对此进行了探讨,并提出了字、词、短语、主观词、韵律词等不同的观点。本文对相关的研究进行了总结和梳理,并提出了未来可能的研究方向,以期为今后的研究提供一定的借鉴和启发。

关键词: 中文阅读, 基本信息加工单元, 词切分。

Yan Guoli, He Liyuan, Song Ziming. On the Basic Information Processing Unit in Chinese Reading[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2016, 14(1): 120-126.

闫国利, 何立媛, 宋子明. 中文阅读的基本信息加工单元初探^*[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2016, 14(1): 120-126.

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48 心理与行为研究 2016, 14（1）： 120~126

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