Abstract:

The relationship between foreign-language proficiency and native-language ability is a central issue in bilingual development. Drawing on the multi-competence model, this study examined the structural associations of English proficiency with Chinese written expression and Chinese pragmatic competence among 168 Chinese learners of English from junior high school, senior high school, and university. Participants completed stage-matched English proficiency tests, a Chinese writing task, and a Chinese pragmatic competence test. Correlation analysis, internal-consistency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and separate structural equation models were used to estimate within-stage predictive associations. English proficiency significantly and positively predicted both Chinese written expression and Chinese pragmatic competence in all three samples, and all bias-corrected bootstrap 95% confidence intervals excluded zero. The standardized path coefficients for Chinese written expression were 0.547, 0.395, and 0.660 in the junior-high, senior-high, and university samples, respectively; the corresponding coefficients for Chinese pragmatic competence were 0.470, 0.382, and 0.322. The cross-stage results are intended only for descriptive comparison, and the university-group results are limited to the interpretation of the current model. The findings support positive structural associations between foreign-language proficiency and native-language written expression and pragmatic competence. Shared language-analysis processes and metacognitive regulation remain candidate mechanisms to be tested directly in longitudinal and experimental research.

Key words: foreign-language learning, English proficiency, Chinese written expression, Chinese pragmatic competence, structural equation modeling