The Influence of the Pinyin and Zhuyin Writing Systems on the Acquisition of Mandarin Word Forms by Native English Speakers

Abstract

The role of written input in second language (L2) phonological and lexical acquisition has received increased attention in recent years. Here we investigated the influence of two factors that may moderate the influence of orthography on L2 word form learning: (i) whether the writing system is shared by the native language and the L2, and (ii) if the writing system is shared, whether the relevant grapheme-phoneme correspondences are also shared. The acquisition of Mandarin via the Pinyin and Zhuyin writing systems provides an ecologically valid opportunity to explore these factors. We first asked whether there is a difference in native English speakers' ability to learn Pinyin and Zhuyin grapheme-phoneme correspondences. In Experiment 1, native English speakers assigned to either Pinyin or Zhuyin groups were exposed to Mandarin words belonging to one of two conditions: in the “congruent” condition, the Pinyin forms are possible English spellings for the auditory words (e.g., < nai> for [nai]); in the “incongruent” condition, the Pinyin forms involve a familiar grapheme representing a novel phoneme (e.g., < xiu> for [ɕiou]). At test, participants were asked to indicate whether auditory and written forms matched; in the crucial trials, the written forms from training (e.g., < xiu>) were paired with possible English pronunciations of the Pinyin written forms (e.g., [ziou]). Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1 except that participants additionally saw pictures depicting word meanings during the exposure phase, and at test were asked to match auditory forms with the pictures. In both experiments the Zhuyin group outperformed the Pinyin group due to the Pinyin group's difficulty with “incongruent” items. A third experiment confirmed that the groups did not differ in their ability to perceptually distinguish the relevant Mandarin consonants (e.g., [ɕ]) from the foils (e.g., [z]), suggesting that the findings of Experiments 1 and 2 can be attributed to the effects of orthographic input. We thus conclude that despite the familiarity of Pinyin graphemes to native English speakers, the need to suppress native language grapheme-phoneme correspondences in favor of new ones can lead to less target-like knowledge of newly learned words' forms than does learning Zhuyin's entirely novel graphemes.

English orthographic forms affect L2 English speech production in native users of a non-alphabetic writing system

“…This shows that effects can take place across scripts, and in the absence of relevant GPCs in the L1 writing system. The few previous studies that investigated orthographic effects on phonology across scripts found little or no orthographic effects (Hayes-Harb & Cheng, 2016;Pytlyk, 2011;Showalter & Hayes-Harb, 2015). However, this absence of effects was probably due to lack of familiarity with the orthography or the phonology of the target language, as such studies investigated naïve learners of a novel language and orthography.…”

Second language learning of phonological alternations with and without orthographic input: Evidence from the acquisition of a German-like voicing alternation

“…By contrast, other researchers have reported no beneficial effect of exposure to orthographic input on the acquisition of a novel phonological contrast (Durham, Hayes-Harb, Barrios, & Showalter, 2016;Hayes-Harb & Hacking, 2015;Pytlyk, 2011;Showalter & Hayes-Harb, 2015;Simon, Chambless, & Kickhöfel Alves, 2010) or have demonstrated that orthographic input may interfere with the acquisition of target-like L2 phonological representations, particularly when the written input provides learners with "misleading" information about the phonological forms of new words. Interference effects have been reported when L2 orthographic conventions differ from those of the native language (L1; Bassetti, 2006), when grapheme-phoneme correspondences (i.e., the mapping[s] between grapheme and phoneme) are different in the L1 and L2 (Hayes-Harb & Cheng, 2016;Hayes-Harb et al, 2010;Showalter, 2018), or when the L1 and L2 differ in whether or not familiar graphemes signal a contrast (Escudero et al, 2014). Other factors, including the degree of perceptual difficulty posed by the contrast (Escudero, 2015) and the transparency of the L2 writing system (Mok, Lee, Li, & Xu, 2018), have also been found to modulate written input effects.…”

Impact of Cyrillic on Native English Speakers’ Phono-lexical Acquisition of Russian

“…Building on Mathieu (2016) and Hayes-Harb and Cheng (2016), in the present study we investigate the interaction of grapheme familiarity and congruence during the acquisition of a pseudo-Russian lexicon by naïve English learners. The Russian Cyrillic alphabet provides the opportunity for a more ecologically valid study in that the combination of native English speakers and Russian/ Cyrillic allows for grapheme familiarity and congruence effects to be observed within a single writing system.…”