Chinese english-1

CHINESE ENGLISH AND CHINGLISH

CHINESE ENGLISH

● first presented by Ge Chuangui in 1980

● it refers to the distinctive vocabulary carrying unique Chinese culture in Chinese-English translation

● it aroused great interest of many scholars in China

● Two major contexts:

* Intranational context

* International context

CHINESE ENGLISH (HISTORICAL STUDIES)

● Ge Chuagui (1980)

- suggests that attention should be drawn to distinguish China English to Chinglish

- holds that the English language originally is the language of English people

● Wang Rongpei (1991)

- used by Chinese people in Chinese native land

- Standard English should be its core

- has unique features

CHINESE ENGLISH (HISTORICAL STUDIES)

● Li Wenzhong (1993)

- the use of China English is not restricted to Chinese native land

- the wording of “Standard English” seems questionable and should be replaced by “Normative English”

- free from Chinese interference or influence

- enters the English language means of transliteration, loan translation, semantic regeneration

- reflects C. features at the aspect of lexis,syntax, and discourse

CHINESE ENGLISH (HISTORICAL STUDIES)

● Xie Zhijun (1995)

- Chinese interference should be taken into account in the study of China English

- an interference variety used by Chinese people in cross-cultural communication

● Jiang Yajun (1995)

- aspects shown in China English should include phonology

- “ English with Chinese characteristics”

The book’s cover is colourful

I advised her send email at home

The dress is too small that I can’t wear

You are going to where?

When I am in middle school, I like English very much

CHINA ENGLISH VS CHINGLISH

CHINA ENGLISH

✓Branch of Expanding Circle; constitutes a variety of English

✓Standard, scholarly, used to transmit information mutually between China and the rest of the world

✓Normative English

CHINA ENGLISH

✓ Normative English as its core

✓ a variety of English that is used by Chinese people

✓ has the Chinese features unavoidably influenced by both the Chinese language and the way of Chinese thinking

✓ it has the linguistics characteristics shown at the levels of phonology, lexis, syntax and discourse

CHINESE ENGLISH (CHINGLISH)

✓Translation of word by word fails

✓Follows indirect pattern in an indirect manner

✓Incomprehensible because of improper transfer from Chinese

✓Holds barrier for intercultural communication

CHINGLISH

✓ Li Wenzhong thinks that it is deformed English and is caused by the interference of Chinese English

✓ its composition and use are unstable and limited

✓ most sentences are produced by misunderstanding semantic and logic relation, and some are even arranged in Chinese structures:

✓ My stomach is hungry (I’m hungry)

✓ His age is very young (He is very young)

✓ His brain is clever (He is clever)

CHINGLISH

● What causes of the “Chinglish” existence?

- Diversity of Culture

- Diversity of Thought

- Misleading on Teaching

CHINGLISH PHENOMENON

A study done by You Wang (March 2009) was able to concluded that:

Ê Sentences accepted by native speakers show that English native speakers are tolerant where number concord, part of speech, possessive, tag questions are concerned

Ê Sentences are unacceptable to English native speakers, when tense, transitiveness or intransitiveness of verbs, auxiliary verbs, set patterns and subordinate conjunctions are not in agreement with British English

Ê Chinglish usages derived from Chinese language are the least acceptable compared to other Chinglish sentences.

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VIEW

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VIEW

Chinese use English for international communication

Derivative of British English

Some think that Chinese English is better than standard Englishes

Do not demand a native-like competence

For better expression of one self

Still low in Attitudinal Scale

Still in the second stage in Kachru’s model of the development of non-native varieties of English

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VIEW

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF CHINESE ENGLISH

PHONOLOGY (JIANG YAJUN, 1995)

●Sometimes add a final /ə/ to the words ending with consonants

●What is it for●This is for you

●Often prolong the short vowels●“ship” and “sheep” are pronounced the same

PHONOLOGY

✓ voiced /ð/ as voiced /z/; andvoiceless /Ө / as voiceless /s/• that as /zat/• thigh as /sī/

✓ do not distinguish between /l/ and /n/• creates confusion with word pairs like light and

night

PHONOLOGY

✓ Tendency to ignore “shifting stress”

• The soldiers are Chinese in the Chinese army.

✓ General lack of voiced fricatives

✓ Tendency to pronounce with syllable-timing

LEXICON

✓ transliteration

• erhu, wushu, kowtow, feng shui, qipao

✓ loan translation

• Spring Festival, One China Policy, beggar chicken, snakehead, spring rolls

SYNTAX

✓ Follows the Chinese linear sequence:

• subject -> adverbial -> predicate -> object

• John yesterday had a good dinner.or

• adverbial -> subject -> predicate -> object

• Yesterday John had a good dinner.

SYNTAX

✓ There is no use crying over spilt milk.✓ CE: Crying over spilt milk is no use.

✓ He didn’t go to work yesterday because he was ill.

✓ CE: Because he was ill, he didn’t go to work yesterday.

SYNTAX

✓ ‘It’ as an empty subject is not used• He didn’t go to work yesterday because he

was ill.

• CE: Because he was ill, he didn’t go to work yesterday.

✓ Modifiers are placed before the main verb

• CE: This morning I bought a book.

SYNTAX

✓ Null subject parameter• CE: Very glad to write to you

again.

DISCOURSE

✓ In college students’ writings, Problem-Solution pattern is most commonly used (Wang Moxi and Li Jin, 1993)

✓ Students use English the Chinese way (Yang Yuchen and Wen Zaorong, 1994)

DISCOURSE

✓ There is improper use of articles and preposition in authoritative publications (e.g. Beijing Weekly, China Today)

✓ ‘Chinese people are inclined to use “big” and “formal” words (Chen Hanlin, 1996)

DISCOURSE

✓ English writing by Chinese students:

• “out-of-focus” organization of a paper,

• flowery and exaggerating expressions,

• allusions,

• heavy use of traditional idioms,

• the use of big words,

• and lack of proper documentation.

PEDAGOGICAL VIEW

Chinese English involves the idea of ‘interlanguage’

According to Skliner, “it is a term suggesting the half way position it holds between knowing and not knowing the target language”

Not accepted in class but its usage is hard to prevent Chinglish is mutually comprehensible to many Chinese

Students tend to use the thinking process of the Chinese language in learning English

Students tend to use the thinking process of the Chinese language in learning English

Students are able to and also want to develop their own attitude towards Chinese English

Studies are focused on British English and less attention in other varieties

Students are having difficulties in being fully involved in British or American English

PEDAGOGICAL VIEW

AS A NEW VARIETY OF ENGLISH (PLATT ET AL. 1984)

1. Chinglish has developed through the education system

2. It has developed in China where a native variety of English was not the language spoken by most of the population.

3. It is used for a range of functions among those who speak or write it in the region where it is used.

4. It has become ‘localized’ by adopting some language features of its own.

FUTURE OF CHINESE ENGLISH(SAMIDA & TAKAHASHI)

Chinese English may soon have more speakers than US and UK combined

“Native speakers may become irrelevant and Chinese English will truly be in the forefront of the development of the language” (Deterding, 2006)