The Role of Phonological Awareness and Phonetic Radical Awareness in Acquiring Chinese Character Literacy Skills in Learners of Chinese as a Second Language

Aug 28, 2026

Research examines how phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness shape literacy development, but evidence for adult second-language learners of Chinese remains limited. This study measures these metalinguistic skills and Chinese character reading and writing outcomes in 83 Arabic- and English-speaking CSL learners who studied in their home country. Results show phonological awareness predicts character literacy directly or indirectly, while phonetic radical awareness does not mediate that relationship.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages42

Reading Time1 h 46 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Phonological awareness, phonetic radical awareness and literacy development in children

[eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[ ](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk) Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York Deposited via The University of York. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: [https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/142782/](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/142782/) [Version: Accepted Version](Version: Accepted Version) Article: Zhang, Haiwei and Roberts, Leah (2019) The Role of Phonological Awareness and Phonetic Radical Awareness in Acquiring Chinese Literacy Skills in Learners of Chinese asa Second Language. System. pp. 163-178. ISSN: 0346-251X [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.02.007](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.02.007) Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can’t change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/) Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk) including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Role of phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness in character literacy skills 1 The Role of Phonological Awareness and Phonetic Radical Awareness in Acquiring Chinese Character Literacy Skills in Learners of Chinese as a Second Language Haiwei Zhang and Leah Roberts University of York Role of phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness in character literacy skills 2 1 Abstract 2 There is much research into the roles of phonological awareness and phonetic radical 3 awareness in the development of Chinese character reading and writing skills in native- 4 speaking children, but there is comparatively little work on the relationship between such 5 metalinguistic skills and character literacy skills in adult learners of Chinese a second language 6 (CSL) . In this study, we explored this issue with 83 Arabic and English CSL learners who had 7 studied Chinese in their home country. Their knowledge of phonological awareness, phonetic 8 radical awareness, and Chinese character reading and writing was measured. There were two 9 main findings. Firstly, the learners’ phonological awareness, but not their phonetic radical 10 awareness, predicted the acquisition of character reading and writing skills directly or indirectly, 11 in line with previous research (Everson, 1998; Jiang, 2003) . Secondly, contrary to earlier 12 findings, phonetic radical awareness did not mediate the effect of phonological awareness on 13 character reading and writing skills (Tong & Yip, 2014). The results point to the different roles 14 that phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness play in the development of 15 character literacy skills, and the still unclear relationship between phonological awareness and 16 phonetic radical awareness. These findings are important for understanding the contribution of 17 phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness to the acquisition of character literacy 18 skills for CSL learners. 19 20 Keywords: second language acquisition, phonological awareness, phonetic radical awareness, 21 Chinese character, metalinguistic awareness 22 Role of phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness in character literacy skills 3 1 1. Introduction 2 Phonological and phonetic metalinguistic skills have been found to have an impact on the 3 development of literacy skills in general. The importance of phonological awareness for users 4 of alphabetic writing systems (e.g. English), and both phonological and p

FAQs

What does the study investigate about Chinese literacy learning?

The study examines how phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness relate to acquiring Chinese character reading and writing skills in adult learners of Chinese as a second language.

How were learners assessed in the study?

Knowledge of phonological awareness, phonetic radical awareness, and Chinese character reading and writing skills was measured among 83 Arabic and English CSL learners.

What are the key findings about the two metalinguistic skills?

Phonological awareness predicted character reading and writing skills directly or indirectly, whereas phonetic radical awareness did not mediate that effect.

Aug 28, 2026

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