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Orthographic support for passing the reading hurdle in Japanese

Learning a second language is, for the most part, a day-in day-out struggle against the mountain of new vocabulary a learner must acquire. Furthermore, since the number of new words to learn is so great, learners must acquire them autonomously. Evidence suggests that for languages with writing systems, native-like vocabulary sizes are only developed through reading widely, and that reading is only fruitful once learners have acquired the core vocabulary required for it to become smooth. Learners of Japanese have an especially high barrier in the form of the Japanese writing system, in particular its use of kanji characters. Recent work on dictionary accessibility has focused on compensating for learner errors in pronouncing unknown words, however much difficulty remains. / This thesis uses the rich visual nature of the Japanese orthography to support the study of vocabulary in several ways. Firstly, it proposes a range of kanji similarity measures and evaluates them over several new data sets, finding that the stroke edit distance and tree edit distance metrics best approximate human judgements. Secondly, it uses stroke edit distance construct a model of kanji misrecognition, which we use as the basis for a new form of kanji search by similarity. Analysing query logs, we find that this new form of search was rapidly adopted by users, indicating its utility. We finally combine kanji confusion and pronunciation models into a new adaptive testing platform, Kanji Tester, modelled after aspects of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. As the user tests themselves, the system adapts to their error patterns and uses this information to make future tests more difficult. Investigating logs of use, we find a weak positive correlation between ability estimates and time the system has been used. Furthermore, our adaptive models generated questions which were significantly more difficult than their control counterparts. / Overall, these contributions make a concerted effort to improve tools for learner self-study, so that learners can successfully overcome the reading hurdle and propel themselves towards greater proficiency. The data collected from these tools also forms a useful basis for further study of learner error and vocabulary development.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/276238
Date January 2010
CreatorsYencken, Lars
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
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