The Iconicity of Character-Formation Methods Influences the Semantic Processing of Dongba Script
This study used a semantic-judgment paradigm with 20 Naxi Dongba priests to test whether the iconicity of Dongba script's character-formation methods affects how quickly its meaning is processed. Experiment 1 found processing speed ranked pictographs faster than indicatives and associative compounds, which were faster than phono-semantic compounds, mirroring the historical order in which these character types emerged. Experiment 2 showed that among pictographs, overall (holistic) forms were processed fastest, then partial forms, then micro-element (blackened) forms, and that concrete pictographs were processed faster than variant (transformed) ones. Experiment 3 found symbol-augmented indicatives processed faster than pure-symbol indicatives. The authors conclude that higher iconicity yields faster semantic processing, consistent with linguistic iconicity theory, and explain the effect via image-schema, perceptual-symbol, and two-network-system theories, tracing Dongba iconicity to the Naxi ancestors' environment, material culture, social organization, and object-oriented thought.
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