Article published In: On the Systematic Nature of Writing Systems
Edited by David F. Mora-Marín and Lynne Cahill
[Written Language & Literacy 26:1] 2023
► pp. 57–75
Chaos or system?
Reassessing the unique case of the Japanese writing system
Published online: 25 April 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00073.joy
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00073.joy
Abstract
This paper seeks to reassess the balance between chaos and systematicity within the Japanese writing system (JWS),
which is noted for its complexity. As potential factors for chaos, Section 2 focuses on two
important conventions. The first is the simultaneous use of multiple scripts as components of a largely systematic whole, even
though it also affords considerable levels of graphematic variation. The second convention of dual-readings turns on kanji
graphematically mapping to both Native-Japanese (NJ) and Sino-Japanese (SJ) morphemes, which yields the JWS’s intriguing form of
morphography. However, as a factor that is, to a considerable degree, a major source of systematicity, Section 3 outlines the graphematic representation of SJ compound words. More specifically, starting from the
morphological structures of two-kanji compound words (2KCWs), Section 3 introduces the
dominant morphological patterns of three-kanji (3KCWs) and four-kanji compound words (4KCWs), which underscore the significance of
2KCWs within the Japanese mental lexicon, and concludes by noting Hatano, Giyoo, Kuhara, Keiko & Akiyama, Michael (1981). Kanji help readers of Japanese infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 3(2): 30–33. study about inferring the meanings of SJ compound words.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Chaotic factors?
- 2.1Multiple scripts as a chaotic factor?
- 2.2Dual-readings as a chaotic factor?
- 3.Compound morphology as a systematic factor?
- 3.1The morphological structures of 2KCWs
- 3.2Dominant morphological structures of 3KCWs and 4KCWs
- 3.3Inferring the meanings of SJ compound words
- 4.Concluding remarks
- Notes
References
References (39)
Backhouse, A. E. (1984). Aspects of the graphological structure of Japanese. Visible Language 18(3): 219–228.
(1994). Writing systems and literacy: The alphabetic myth revisited. In Ludo Verhoeven (ed.), Functional literacy: Theoretical issues and educational implications, 305–320. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Davies, Eirlys E. (1987). Eyeplay: On some uses of non-standard spelling. Language and Communication 7(1): 47–58.
DeFrancis, John (1989). Visible speech: The diverse oneness of writing systems. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.
Desbordes, Françoise (1997). The notion of orthography: A Latin inheritance. In Clotilde Pontecorvo (ed.), Writing development: An interdisciplinary view, 117–128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. (2009). The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Hatano, Giyoo (1995). The psychology of Japanese literacy: Expanding ‘the practice account’. In Laura M. W. Martin, Katherine Nelson & Ethel Tobach (eds.) Sociocultural psychology: Theory and practice of doing and knowing, 250–275. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hatano, Giyoo, Kuhara, Keiko & Akiyama, Michael (1981). Kanji help readers of Japanese infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 3(2): 30–33.
Igarashi, Yuko (2007). The changing role of katakana in the Japanese writing system: Processing and pedagogical dimensions for native speakers and foreign learners. Doctoral dissertation. University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Joyce, Terry. (2002). Constituent-morpheme priming: Implications from the morphology of two-kanji compound words. Japanese Psychological Research, 44(2): 79–90.
. (2004). Modeling the Japanese mental lexicon: Morphological, orthographic and phonological considerations. In Serge P. Shohov (ed.), Advances in psychological research: Volume 31, 27–61. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.
. (2011). The significance of the morphographic principle for the classification of writing-systems. Written Language & Literacy, 14(1): 58–81.
. (2016). Writing systems and scripts. In Andrea Rocci & Louis de Saussure (eds.), Verbal communication, 287–308). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
. (2023). Typologies of writing systems. In Marco Condorelli & Hanna Rutkowska (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of historical orthography, 138–159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Joyce, Terry, Hodošček, Bor, & Nishina, Kikuko. (2012). Orthographic representation and variation within the Japanese writing system: Some corpus-based observations. Written Language & Literacy, 15(2): 254–278.
Joyce, Terry, & Masuda, Hisashi. (2018). Introduction to the multi-script Japanese writing system and word processing. In Hye K. Pae (ed.), Writing systems, reading processes, and cross-linguistic influences: Reflections from the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages, 179–199. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
. (2019). On the notions of graphematic representation and orthography from the perspective of the Japanese writing system. Written Language & Literacy, 22(2): 247–279.
. (2021). Constructing databases of Japanese three- and four-kanji compound words: Some observations concerning their morphological structures. In Yannis Haralambous (ed.), Grapholinguistics in the 21st century: /gʁafematik/ June 17–19, 2020. Proceedings, Part II, 579–619. Brest: Fluxus Editions.
Joyce, Terry, Masuda, Hisashi, & Ogawa, Taeko. (2014). Jōyō kanji as core building blocks of the Japanese writing system: Some observations from database construction. Written Language & Literacy, 17(2): 173–194.
Joyce, Terry, & Meletis, Dimitrios. (2021). Alternative criteria for writing system typology: Cross-linguistic observations from the German and Japanese writing systems. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 40(3): 257–277.
Kageyama, Taro & Saito, Michiaki (2016). Vocabulary strata and word formation processes. In Taro Kageyama & Hideki Kishimoto (eds.), Handbook of Japanese lexicon and word formation, 11–50. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Kobayashi, Hideki, Yamashita, Kiyo & Kageyama, Taro (2016). Sino-Japanese words. In Taro Kageyama & Hideki Kishimoto (eds.), Handbook of Japanese lexicon and word formation, 93–131. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Lurie, David B. (2012). The development of writing in Japan. In Stephen D. Houston (ed.), The shape of script: How and why writing systems change, 159–185. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press.
Nomura, Masaaki (1988). Niji kango no kōzō [The structure of two-kanji Sino-Japanese words]. Nihongogaku 7(5): 44–55.
Powell, Barry B. (2009). Writing: Theory and history of the technology of civilization. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Rastle, Kathleen (2019). EPS mid-career prize lecture 2017: Writing systems, reading, and language. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 72(4): 677–692.
Sampson, Geoffrey (1985). Writing systems: A linguistic introduction. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
(2018). From phonemic spelling to distinctive spelling. Written Language & Literacy 21(1): 3–25.
Suzuki, Takao (1975). On the twofold phonetic realization of basic concepts: In defense of Chinese characters in Japanese. In F. C. C. Peng (ed.), Language in Japanese society, 175–192. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Taylor, Insup & Park, Kwonsaeng (1995). Differential processing of content words and function words: Chinese characters vs. phonetic scripts. In Insup Taylor & David R. Olson (eds.), Scripts and literacy: Reading and learning to read alphabets, syllabaries and characters, 185–195. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.