This chapter will explore the cognitive challenges in learning the Japanese writing system, in particular the cognitive processes involved in memorizing a morphographic script, a task that is of particular difficulty for students of alphabetic language backgrounds. Kanji, unlike alphabetic writing systems, do not represent the phonology of a language (well, not usually; as we learned in the preceding chapter, some kanji do, in fact, represent the phonology of the Japanese language). They therefore require rather different cognitive processes to decode them when reading. Many beginner learners first use a phonological processing system when learning kanji, which causes difficulties in learning, as they soon discover the reading skills they are accustomed to in their first languages do not apply to written Japanese. This chapter will explore the different processes involved when learning a character-based system and discuss implications this has for the Japanese language learner, instructor and researcher. It will begin, however, with a brief introduction to cognitive processes in general, in order to better understand how these processes come into play when learners face the task of memorizing a writing system that contains so many novel characters, many of which can be read in multiple ways.

A Brief Introduction to Cognitive Processes

Cognitive models of SLA examine the learning of language along similar lines to the integration of any new pieces of information into the memory. That is, SLA occurs through the receiving, processing, storing and retrieving of new knowledge into existing memory structures. Increased proficiency in the language is the result of not only more language being successfully integrated into the memory, but also the ease with which this language can be retrieved from memory stores. If a learner no longer has to think about retrieving language (whether it is in the form of vocabulary, language chunks or grammatical knowledge), the recall process has become effortless and automatic. In cognitive theory, this automaticity can be described as processes that have shifted from declarative knowledge (knowing about the language) to procedural knowledge (automatically knowing how to use it).