Pinyin Spelling Promotes Reading Abilities of Adolescents Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language: Evidence From Mediation Models

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Huimin Xiao¹  Caihua Xu¹  Hetty Rusamy² 

[1] Chinese Language and Culture College, Beijing Normal University;Chinese Department, Xin Zhong School

关键词: Pinyin;    Chinese;    Pinyin spelling;    Chinese reading abilities;    Chinese as a foreign language (CFL);   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.596680

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Pinyin is a phonological encoding system used to spell modern Chinese Mandarin due to the phonological opacity of Chinese characters. The present study examined the role of Pinyin spelling in the reading abilities of adolescents learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). A total of 158 Indonesian senior primary students were tested on Pinyin spelling, character production, listening comprehension, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. Pinyin spelling skills were assessed by two measures, Pinyin Dictation (sentence dictation in Pinyin) and Pinyin Tagging (Pinyin writing for characters). Path analysis revealed that even after controlling for the effect of character production, Pinyin dictation performance influenced reading comprehension through the mediating effect of listening comprehension and the depth of vocabulary knowledge, and Pinyin tagging performance also influenced reading comprehension through the mediating effect of the depth of vocabulary knowledge. The results highlight the importance of Pinyin skills for Chinese reading abilities of CFL learners. As a reliable and explicit indicator of specifying Chinese phonological representations and processing, Pinyin spelling has a long-term and multifaceted influence on higher-level CFL abilities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY