Chinese character matters! An examination of linguistic accuracy in writing performances on the HSK test

The orthographic and morphological system of Mandarin Chinese requires more time and developmental stages for learners to acquire. This source of difficulty might present unique challenges and opportunities for writing assessment for Chinese as a Second Language (CSL). This study employed a corpus-based approach to examine the accuracy features of 10,750 essays written by test-takers from 17 first language (L1) backgrounds on the HSK test. Based on both orthographic types and economic-geopolitical factors, we classified test-taker L1s into 3 groups. We first factor-analyzed a comprehensive array of error types to identify the underlying dimensions of Chinese writing accuracy. Then, dimension scores were included in regression models to predict HSK writing scores for different L1 groups. The results revealed five dimensions related to syntactic, morphological, and lexical errors. Among them, dimensions on character and word-level errors were stronger predictors of HSK scores, although the discrimination power was stronger for test-takers from L1s that are orthographically dissimilar and economic-geopolitically distant from Mandarin Chinese. These findings suggest that Chinese morphology (i.e., the acquisition of characters and how characters form words) constitutes a unique source of difficulty for L2 learners. We argue that morphological elements should be an important subconstruct in Chinese writing assessments.