Neural Correlates of Chinese and Japanese Semantic Processing

Abstract

Semantic processing is the ultimate goal of language communication. Chinese characters and Japanese kanji both contain semantic clues in their semantic radicals, However, as Japanese is learned phonologically instead of morphologically nowadays, these clues may be more conducive to Chinese comprehension. It is therefore plausible that these inherent language differences could contribute to differential neural substrates but this has not been directly examined. To address this research gap, the current meta-analysis conducted direct contrasts between foci reported in published Chinese and Japanese fMRI studies to seek convergent activation across studies. It was found that Chinese evoked increased right hemispheric activation than Japanese, suggesting that semantic radicals might be more beneficial to Chinese than Japanese comprehension. The involvement of left supramarginal gyrus in spoken Japanese but not in spoken Chinese suggested that Japanese was processed more like alphabetic languages even though it is visually represented by characters. It might be further inferred that orthographic processing was essential for Chinese comprehension whereas phonological processing was more relevant for Japanese. The findings deepen our understanding of how linguistic characteristics shape our brains in processing semantics.