The Japanese Mental Lexicon

“This is one of the finest works of its type I have ever seen. It really does an excellent job of covering the field, both in breadth and depth. The ambitious goal of reviewing both the Japanese and western contributions to
Japanese psycholinguistics is fully met. The chapters on processing of kanji, kana, and romaji are especially welcome.”

“The authors have summarized the diverse and complex studies of Japanese orthography in a comprehensive and insightful manner. The book does an excellent job of introducing the complex ways in which the three major Japanese scripts interact with reading abilities, cognitive and perceptual processing, and with cultural perceptions, and so this volume is of interest no only for reading specialists and psycholinguists, but also for those interested in the social aspects of literacy. I found this book highly readable, wide-ranging in scope, and exceptionally perceptive in its summary of the large body of research devoted to this unique and fascinating orthography.”

“How does lexical access become word recognition when processing written Japanese? Japanese has the distinction of employing all three extant means for transferring sound to written symbol (the alphabetic, the syllabic, and the logographic) and, thus, provides an informative counterpoint to current research on written word recognition. In this highly readable book, authors Kess and Miyamoto make the point that the cognitive considerations in processing Japanese orthography are not unique, although since George Sansom‘s famous 1928 remark — “as a practical instrument it is surely without inferiors” — we have treated the Japanese writing system as if it were, and uniquely bad at that. This volume, packed with facts and findings from the latest research, demonstrates that support for the absolute uniqueness of logographic systems and, by extension, of the Japanese mixed system is considerably weaker than has been posited by some. Kess and Miyamoto go a long way toward bringing the Japanese reader/writer out of the isolation attendant upon having “the worst” writing system into the central cross-linguistic debates on reading and writing processes.”

“In their final conclusion, Kess/Miyamoto indicate that their original intention was to survey the rich field of Japanese psycholinguistic research on the mental lexicon: "We stood in awe of the vast range of individual talent which has gone into consolidating this key area in Japanese scholarship, and we can only hope that we have done it justice".(p.208). In the reviewer's perspective, Kess/Miyamoto have succeeded in achieving their grand objective.”

“This book is a comprehensive study of psycholinguistic aspects of Japanese writing. It does not present new findings, but rather refers the reader to the relevant empirical studies, emphasizing the significance of familiarity and frequency of usage rather than the difference between the writing systems.”