Language Log

« previous post | next post »

A graduate student from the PRC told me that the situation regarding instruction in Hanyu Pinyin has become quite chaotic in recent years in China.  Hànyǔ Pīnyīn 汉语拼音 ("Sinitic Spelling"), or Pīnyīn 拼音 ("Spelling") for short, is the official PRC Romanization of Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), i.e., Pǔtōnghuà 普通话.

For many decades, it used to be that all students — beginning in first grade of elementary school — learned to read and write via Pinyin.  Indeed, under the program known as "Zhùyīn shìzì, tíqián dú xiě 注音识字，提前读写" ("Phonetically Annotated Character Recognition Speeds Up Reading and Writing"), or "Z.T." for short, which actively encouraged children to use Pinyin Romanization for characters they were unable to write, the promotion of Pinyin continued well into upper grades. See "How to learn to read Chinese" (5/25/08).  In the last few years, however, it seems that instruction in Pinyin — at least in some schools — has become "optional".  Some teachers are simply not teaching the basics of pinyin.  As a result, many students are no longer competent in it, so that when they get to the dreaded gaokao (National College Entrance Examination [NCEE]), where mastery of pinyin is required, they're not prepared for that part of the exams.  Parents are complaining.

Judging from what other other PRC graduate students have told me, it doesn't seem that there is any coherent policy to downplay Pinyin, although I must say that, since I started going to China in 1981 and maintained close contact with language reform specialists there after that time, there has been considerable backward slippage on the government commitment to Pinyin from the time of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, as I have repeatedly documented on Language Log.  But that is only on the official side of things.  In terms of actual alphabetical usage in daily life (via Pinyin and English), it has only continued to grow, albeit informally and unoffically.

Here's the reaction of one Ph.D candidate:

I've never heard of this. I believe that children in or under the first year of elementary school still have to learn pinyin, since this is a very basic skill for everyone who needs to use computer / cellphone / tablet to type Chinese characters.* I cannot think of any reason for making the instruction of it optional. Also, actually the mastery of pinyin is not required in Gaokao. Students need to know the sound of some specific words in a Chinese exam, but no exam questions ask them to actually write pinyin.

*VHM:  emphasis added.

Here's the reaction of an M.A. student:

I have heard about it. It seems like their rationale is that pinyin is just a tool used to recognize hanzi, so they are skipping the means to directly reach the ends. Some teachers think that making little kids learn pinyin first deprives them of the "original / pure" feelings of hanzi, so they want them to get exposed to the actual hanzi first (which they think is the ultimate goal), or at least at the same time. Another funny reason I have heard is that "pinyin is more difficult than hanzi."

I am not sure if primary schools really are not teaching pinyin anymore (so many rumors, so little fact). However, I do think the hearsay has something to do with one of the many quirks of Chinese education: "remedial / additional classes" (bǔxí bān 補習班). When I was in middle and high school, 90% of my classmates were sent to additional classes outside the normal curricula to either learn repetitively what they had already learnt at class or to learn ahead. Parents were anxious about falling behind because of the competitiveness of gaokao. One unwanted concomitant is that teachers in regular schools also become loose because they are also earning by teaching in those additional classes.

Now I have heard that this ridiculous norm encroached on even primary school students and younger. What happens is that, prior to primary school, many kids are sent to those additional classes to learn pinyin as a preparation (with parents afraid that their kids cannot catch up in primary school because every kid is learning ahead). In primary school, teachers know and observe that the students have already acquired some knowledge of pinyin and thus do not pay enough attention to its instruction, leaving the impression that they are not teaching it anymore.

Sorry for rambling on and complaining about this! My opinion is probably biased. I can have a lot to say with our educational curricula. I was one of the lucky 10% to not have gone through those additional classes because my parents are quirky. But alas, my poor little cousin suffered all the way to high school.

The race to college and graduate school — preferably abroad — begins in kindergarten:   crème de la crème de la crème….

 

Selected readings

• "The impact of phonetic inputting on Chinese languages" (12/9/19)
• "First grade science card: Pinyin degraded" (4/11/19)
• "Character Amnesia" (7/22/10)
• "Character amnesia revisited" (12/13/12)
• "Spelling bees and character amnesia" (8/7/13)
• "Character amnesia and the emergence of digraphia" (9/25/13)
• "Diglossia and digraphia in Guoyu-Putonghua and in Hindi-Urdu" (1/1/12)
• "Sayable but not writable" (9/12/13)
• "Pinyin in 1961 propaganda poster art" (12/29/17)
• "Words in Mandarin: twin kle twin kle lit tle star" (8/14/12)
• "The uses of Hanyu pinyin" (5/22/16)
• "The end of the line for Mandarin Phonetic Symbols?" (3/12/18)
• "Ask Language Log: The alphabet in China" (11/6/19)
• Mark Hansell, "The Sino-Alphabet: The Assimilation of Roman Letters into the Chinese Writing System," Sino-Platonic Papers, 45 (May, 1994), 1-28 (pdf)
• Helena Riha, "Lettered Words in Chinese:  Roman Letters as Morpheme-syllables" (pdf)
• "Zhao C: a Man Who Lost His Name" (2/27/09)
• "Creeping Romanization in Chinese, part 3" (11/25/18)
• "The actuality of emerging digraphia" (3/10/19)
• "Sememic spelling" (3/27/19)
• "Polyscriptal Taiwanese" (7/24/10)
• "The Roman Alphabet in Cantonese" (3/23/11)
• "Love those letters" (11/3/18)
• "Acronyms in China" (11/2/19)
• "Lu Xun and the Zhao family" (1/5/16)
• "Backward Thinking about Orientalism and Chinese Characters" (5/16/16)
• "The letter * has bee* ba**ed in Chi*a" (2/26/18)

Over the years, there have been many scores of Language Log posts on the role of Pinyin in Chinese character learning and inputting, as well as for other practical applications such as indexing, sorting, signs, braille, semaphore, and so forth.  The above items are just a small sampling that shows how essential the alphabet has become in contemporary China.  Despite occasional harping against Pinyin (and English) on the part of ardent Hanziphiles, it seems that the alphabet has become an essential, ineradicable part of the Chinese linguistic landscape — through a process that has been going on since the days of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Nicolas Trigault  (1577-1628).

[Thanks to Zihan Guo, Chenfeng Wang], and Shuheng Zhang]

April 11, 2021 @ 9:02 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Alphabets, Language acquisition, Language and education, Language teaching and learning, Spelling, Transcription, Writing systems

Permalink