A Comparative Study of Aphasics' Abilities in Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja

In Korean, as with Kana and Kanji in Japanese, two kinds of word-writing systems--Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and Hanja (the Chinese character; Kanji in Japanese)--have been and still are being used. Hangul is phonetic while Hanja is ideographic. A phonetic alphabet represents the pronunciation of words, wheras ideographs are where a character of a writing system represents a concept. Aphasics suffer from language disorders following brain damage. The reading and writing of Hangul and Hanja by two Korean Broca's aphasics were analyzed with two goals. The first goal was to confirm the functional autonomy of reading and writing systems in the brain that has been argued by other researchers. The second goal was to reveal what difference the subjects show in reading and writing Hangul and Hanja. As experimental materials, 50 monosyllabic words were chosen in Hangul and Hanja respectively. The 50 word pairs of Hangul and Hanja have the same meaning and are also the most familiar monosyllabic words for a group of normal adults in their fifties and sixties. The errors that the aphasic subjects made in performing the experimental materials are analyzed and discussed here. This analysis has confirmed that reading and writing systems are located in different parts in the brain. Furthemore, it seems clear that the two writing systems of Hangul and Hanja have their own respective processes.