O presente estudo busca fazer uma comparação entre dois sistemas de transliteração do mandarim, o pinyin e o zhuyin fuhao, no contexto do ensino de chinês no Brasil. Para tanto, a pesquisa baseou-se na dissertação de Lin (2007) e, por meio de pesquisa qualitativa, entrevistou cinco alunos que estudaram por meio de cada sistema. A análise dos resultados sugere que os alunos que estudaram por meio do sistema pinyin apresentam maior dificuldade na pronúncia de fonemas aspirados e não aspirados do mandarim em comparação com alunos do sistema zhuyin fuhao. / The research aims to compare two Mandarin transliteration systems, pinyin and zhuyin fuhao, in the current situation of Chinese teaching in Brazil. The study was based on the dissertation of Lin (2007) and, using qualitative research, interviewed five mandarin students for each system. The results suggest that those who have studied by pinyin had greater difficulty in pronouncing aspirated and unaspirated consonants of Mandarin in comparison with zhuyin fuhao students.

O presente estudo busca fazer uma comparação entre dois sistemas de transliteração do mandarim, o pinyin e o zhuyin fuhao, no contexto do ensino de chinês no Brasil. Para tanto, a pesquisa baseou-se na dissertação de Lin (2007) e, por meio de pesquisa qualitativa, entrevistou cinco alunos que estudaram por meio de cada sistema. A análise dos resultados sugere que os alunos que estudaram por meio do sistema pinyin apresentam maior dificuldade na pronúncia de fonemas aspirados e não aspirados do mandarim em comparação com alunos do sistema zhuyin fuhao. / The research aims to compare two Mandarin transliteration systems, pinyin and zhuyin fuhao, in the current situation of Chinese teaching in Brazil. The study was based on the dissertation of Lin (2007) and, using qualitative research, interviewed five mandarin students for each system. The results suggest that those who have studied by pinyin had greater difficulty in pronouncing aspirated and unaspirated consonants of Mandarin in comparison with zhuyin fuhao students.

The challenges in learning pinyin, the romanized Chinese orthography, faced by 5-to-7-year-olds, have received little attention. This study represents an attempt to better understand learning an alphabetic writing system from the viewpoint of the alphabetic principle, in the context of the Chinese language, by examining both reading aloud and spelling, with a particular focus on spelling. To detect the challenges, a pinyin syllable-type test (STT) was developed, in which syllables were classified into seven spelling types guided by the alphabetic principle, where there is a letter-sound correspondence. Syllables of all the lengths under each type of spelling pattern were given to two age groups, 6-year-old first-grade pupils and 7-year-old second-grade pupils, at the start of their school year. The sample consists of a total of 192 pupils. In spelling, the STT reveals that challenges appear when the spelling type departs from the alphabetic principle. The results show that the hardest type of spelling is not the type containing the longest syllables, but a type one-half of that length, for which the correspondence between letters and sounds is abridged, but explicitly taught. In contrast, the latter type poses no problem in the reading-aloud test, where the results show little variation between the spelling types. Comparing the students' performance on the STT shows an order of challenges among the seven types emerging in the first grade. This order is confirmed in the second grade in some types but not others. The pupils' raw data reveal not only what is challenging but also why it is so. Along with an indication of the influence from the local speech, the data also point to the effect of the teaching method, which is more or less uniform all over China. Thus, there is a possible application of the findings to a larger population.

This paper critically reviewed the literature on the relationships between Pinyin and Chinese bilingual and monolingual children’s phonological awareness (PA) and identified areas of research worth of further investigation. As the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet providing pronunciation of the universal Chinese characters, Pinyin facilitates children’s early reading development. What research has found in English is that PA is a reliable indicator of later reading success and meta-linguistic training improves PA. In Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, there is also evidence that PA predicts reading in Chinese, which confirms the universality of PA’s role. However, research shows the uniqueness of each language: tonal awareness is stronger indicator in Chinese while phonemic awareness is stronger indicator in English. Moreover, Pinyin, the meta-linguistic training, has been found to improve PA in Chinese and reading in Chinese and possibly facilitate the cross-language transfer of PA from Chinese to English and vice versa.

This paper critically reviewed the literature on the relationships between Pinyin and Chinese bilingual and monolingual children’s phonological awareness (PA) and identified areas of research worth of further investigation. As the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet providing pronunciation of the universal Chinese characters, Pinyin facilitates children’s early reading development. What research has found in English is that PA is a reliable indicator of later reading success and meta-linguistic training improves PA. In Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, there is also evidence that PA predicts reading in Chinese, which confirms the universality of PA’s role. However, research shows the uniqueness of each language: tonal awareness is stronger indicator in Chinese while phonemic awareness is stronger indicator in English. Moreover, Pinyin, the meta-linguistic training, has been found to improve PA in Chinese and reading in Chinese and possibly facilitate the cross-language transfer of PA from Chinese to English and vice versa.

A long Canadian tradition has promoted the rise of multicultural education. In this multicultural society, ways to deal with the cultural differences in the teaching of Chinese to students with various backgrounds and needs have always been a challenging task. A review of the literature revealed that little research has focused on Chinese pronunciation teaching in Canada. In order to understand the teaching of Chinese pronunciation in Canadian universities, this study examines Integrated Chinese (Liu, Yao, et al., 2016), a Chinese textbook widely used in Canada. The study also qualitatively analyses two teachers' self-evaluations and their teaching experiences, as gathered from surveys and interviews. The results of the study aim to inform both seasoned and novice teachers in their work in the Canadian post-secondary context and to offer practical pedagogical recommendations for consideration. / Graduate

The current research built on Yan, Miller, Li, and Shu’s (2008) eye-tracking study, which examined how second grade native Chinese speakers focused on Pinyin and Chinese characters while reading sentences. This research also used eye-tracking to examine how Chinese foreign Language learners (CFL) fixated on Pinyin and Chinese characters to determine if Pinyin facilitated or distracted from character learning. Two groups participated in this research: first semester university students enrolled in a beginning level Chinese class, and third, fourth, and fifth grade students enrolled in Chinese dual language immersion (DLI). All participants were asked to read eight sentences in Chinese with Pinyin placed above the characters. These sentences included familiar, unfamiliar, and new characters based on the students’ curricula. Results indicated that the DLI students spent significantly more time and fixations on Pinyin than characters, whereas the first semester university students spent more time and fixations on unfamiliar and new characters than Pinyin. The students also completed a questionnaire about Pinyin, which showed that the majority of elementary students liked having Pinyin above the characters and did not think that Pinyin was distracting. A much smaller percentage of first semester university students liked having Pinyin above the characters, but the majority realized that it was distracting. It seems that the first semester university students used Pinyin as a tool, but the DLI students used it as a crutch. Pedagogical suggestions are provided.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka korrelationen mellan vetenskaplig forskning av läsinlärning i det kinesiska språket bland barn i Kina i skolans första år, med nationella officiella direktiv som berättar vad läsinlärningen ska innehålla och på vilket sätt den ska utföras. En god korrelation kan tolkas som att direktiven för den nuvarande undervisningen är modern och uppdaterad och ligger i linje med modern forskning. För att genomföra undersökningen sammanfattas först ett stort antal vetenskapliga artiklar vilka redogör för faktorer som är viktiga för läsinlärningen. Därefter studeras den kinesiska nationella läroplanen samt två olika läroböcker för grundskolans första år, vilka tillsammans representerar nationella direktiv. Många av de centrala faktorerna som finns enligt forskningen finns även med i de nationella direktiven. Studien visar dock att korrelationen är olika god beroende på vilken synvinkel man använder och vilken faktor som studeras.

Pinyin, the romanization system of Standard Chinese released in 1958 in China, is used to transcribe Chinese orthography, to facilitate reading comprehension and is used as a tool in general Chinese language education. Both in and outside of China and for both Chinese and foreign students, pinyin has also been used as an aid in Chinese language education for teaching Standard Chinese pronunciation and annotating Chinese texts in Chinese characters. While the related research mostly concerns the effects of pinyin on students’ abilities, research on the beliefs and practices of pinyin by Chinese language teachers in Swedish schools is scarce. The present study aims to explore Chinese language teachers’ perceptions about the importance of pinyin, and to investigate the teachers’ practice with pinyin in teaching. While the didactics of the teachers is coherent with parts in the literature describing teachers’ communicative focus, findings in the study entail that the teachers employ a method of presenting new characters involving showing the combination of a Chinese character, pinyin, and translation all at once. The balance between pinyin and Chinese character reading comprehension, a theme identified in the analysis, is a fact that the study’s respondents find hard to balance. The respondents also report positive mental effects of pinyin, such as increased confidence and an increased desire for learning Chinese in general. Lastly, the respondents emphasized the importance of pinyin in an expanding, digitalized era.

La ricerca intende illustrare le modalità applicative attraverso le quali si possono esprimere in lingua cinese le terminologie specialistiche dei campi tecnici e scientifici del XXI secolo. Un percorso che attraversa la storia delle scienze in Cina dal terzo secolo a.C. fino ai nostri giorni, ricostruisce le regole che passo dopo passo, non senza deviazioni e ripensamenti, gli studiosi cinesi hanno stabilito per creare e gestire le loro “parole” composte con innumerevoli caratteri, gli hanzi, simbolo della cultura e della civiltà cinese, icone che ancora oggi “parlano” ai lettori, espressioni grafiche di oggetti e di concetti. La presentazione dell'opera di Feng Zhiwei, uno tra i maggiori esponenti della terminologia cinese contemporanea, ci accompagna nell'approfondimento degli orientamenti degli studi terminologici cinesi e nel confronto con quelli euro americani, a partire dagli studi svolti da Eugen Wüster all'inizio del XX secolo. L'analisi della terminologia cinese nella tecnologia del fotovoltaico e nel mondo economico-finanziario, costituisce il terreno di verifica delle pratiche terminologiche in essere nella lingua cinese e delle tendenze nella costruzione neologica e neonimica. / This research aims to illustrate the methodes used for creation of the specialized terminologies in the technical and scientific fields in the XXI century’s Chinese language. A pathway crossing the history of sciences in China from the III century B.C. until our days, reconstructs the rules that step after step the Chinese scholars have established in order to create and manage their “words” with the lot of characters, the hanzi, symbol of the Chinese culture and civilization, icons that still today “speak” to the readers, graphical expressions of objects and concepts. The presentation of the work of Feng Zhiwei, one among the greatest exponents of the contemporary Chinese terminology, is our guideline in a close examination of the Chinese terminological studies’ orientations, in comparison with the euro-americans ones, starting from the studies developed by Eugen Wüster at the beginning of the XX century. The analysis of the Chinese terminology in the photovoltaic technology and in the economic-financial world, constitutes the ground of verification of the actual terminological practices in the Chinese language and the tendencies in the neological and neonymical construction.