论文总字数：28102字

摘 要

“中式英语”是师生在使用第二语言时照搬汉语语言习惯的结果,在师生中尤以学生为甚。从社会语言学角度来看,它的存在有着独有的社会功能和社会语言学根源,但同时也存在弊端。为此,有必要调查其根源并对症下药,以期促使学生英语口语的地道化,从而有利于促进英语教学改革的顺利进行。

关键词：“中式英语”；社会根源；社会语言学功能；教学建议

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Sociolinguistic Functions of “Chinglish” 3

3.1 Functions of personal expression 3

3.2 Functions of knowledge and information acquisition 3

4. The Social Roots of “Chinglish" 4

4.1 Ddifferent modes of thinking between English and Chinese 4

4.2 Negative language transfer 5

4.3 Cross-cultural influence 7

5. The Negative Effects of “Chinglish" 7

5.1 The negative impacts on one"s English learning and employment 7

5.2 The negative impacts on society 8

6. The Suggested Solutions to Avoiding “Chinglish” 8

7. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

In recent years, the domestic and foreign linguists have done a lot of research on “Chinglish”. Many domestic scholars have research and discussed the causes, manifestations and harmfulness of “Chinglish”. These studies and discussions have played a positive role in the improving the quality of English teaching and training students to acquire pure English. English has become a universal language in the world with the deepening of economic globalization. More and more people who are from different countries are communicating and disseminating ideas in the same language. In this context, due to the lack of attention to the differences between the two languages in English teaching, there are a lot of English with Chinese characteristics, namely “Chinglish”.

Sociolinguistics mainly investigates the variation of language under different social conditions and discusses the "co-variation" relationship between society and language. As we all know, "language is a variable, society is also a variable; The two variables of language and society restrict each other. Sociolinguistics is divided into the sociology of language problems and the linguistics of social problems. This paper mainly discusses the linguistics of social problems and studies the variation of language under various social conditions.

2. Literature Review

“Chinglish” is a strange word. It is difficult to find in English-Chinese dictionaries, but most English learners in our country know the word. If someone speaks English with the way of Chinese expression, someone will laugh at him and say that he speaks “Chinglish”. “Chinglish” is a derogatory word in people’s minds, and often associated with words such as “irregularity” and “error”. What is “Chinglish”? Scholars have different views. Deng Yanchang(1988) explained that: “Chinglish” is Speeches writing in English that shows the interference of influence of Chinese. Some sentences may be little or more than word for word translations of Chinese expressions. “Chinglish” may be grammatically correct, but the choice of words or phrases and the manner of expression do not conform to standard English usage. Although understanding may not be a problem, “Chinglish” is unacceptable. In "China English and “Chinglish” (1993), Li Wenzhong distinguished “China English” from “Chinglish”. “China English” has the characteristics of Chinese vocabulary, sentence and discourse. It focuses on standard English and expresses unique things in various fields of Chinese society and culture. not being interfered and influenced by mother tongue. "Chinglish”, on the other hand, refers to the abnormal English which is not standard English or not in accordance with English cultural habits and appears in English communication due to the interference and influence of Chinese mother tongue and the rigid set of Chinese rules and habits by Chinese learners and users. Zhang Peicheng (1995) believes that “Chinglish is the abbreviation of ChineseEnglish and a variant of English. It is the correct English expression on Chinese land." He puts forward that "It is not necessary to think that “Chinglish” is derogatory and dare not use it". He also thinks that a name is just a symbol, and its derogatory meaning disappears naturally with the perfection of what it represents. The author disagrees with this point of view. For example, if someone speaks or writes “Chinglish”, I’m afraid most people won’t be happy. Mr. GE Zhuan (1980) once mentioned that when speaking or writing English in our country, there are some unique expressions in our country, such as the “四书”, “五经”, “翰林院”, “五四运动”. These can be translated as “Four Books”, “Five Classics”, “Hanlinyuan” or “Imperial Academy”, “May Fourth Movement”. He also said, "I don’t think all of these English translations are “Chinese English” or “Chinglish”. Xie Zhijun (1995) mentioned that some scholars asked the famous translator Ye Junjian if he thought there was “Chinglish” in Ye’s English novels. Ye’s answer was: “Yes. But it shouldn’t be called Chinglish.” So it can be seen that people hold a negative view of “Chinglish”.

From the perspective of sociolinguistics, “Chinglish” is a language variant of standard English in social communication and an informal style. Nevertheless, “Chinglish” is widespread. The first is reflected in English learners’ and users’ speeches and writings. In addition, it exists in social propaganda slogans, signboards, product brochures, introduction notices and even newspapers and books. Zhang Wei, a professor at Capital normal University (1998), also wrote a book on various forms, contents of “Chinglish” and its negative impact.

To sum up, “Chinglish” has the following characteristics: 1. “Chinglish” is a derogatory term. 2 “Chinglish” is made up subjectively by Chinese people who do not know enough about English, which is incompatible with English grammar or contrary to the cultural habits of English. 3. Although “Chinglish” has some similarities, but due to different solutions, there is no complete and rigorous system. 4. “Chinglish” is a widespread phenomenon, and it is difficult and unacceptable for English-speaking countries to understand.

3. Sociolinguistic Functions of “Chinglish”

Austin J L, a British philosopher and author of the theory of speech ACTS, said there had been a lot of development in its development. To satisfy the purpose of a statement, people often express their ideas in the form of statements, questions or other grammatical forms. Similarly, I have found that “Chinglish” is not used intentionally by teachers and students of independent colleges, but rather to express an intention, sometimes an urgent action. In terms of its sociolinguistic function, the author believes that "Chinglish” among teachers and students of English majors has two major functions: personal expression and acquisition of knowledge and information.

3.1 Functions of personal expression

The expression function refers to that the speaker just wants to express a kind of own idea to the listener, and the speaker does not care about the acceptability of the listener. This function allows the presence of grammatical errors in speech, and for the speaker, the content of speech can be experienced or imagined. I once asked a classmate what his English name was when I was a freshman in college. He said:

“I haven’t English name”.

At first glance, this sentence is correct, but in fact, it is also a typical “Chinglish”. It may be that English students" English grammar skills are not good enough.

I don"t have English name.

However, this sentence does not affect communication and enables the listener to fully understand the speaker"s meaning. As we can see from the speech, “Chinglish" can express ideas smoothly, but in writing, the use of “Chinglish" often hinders the expression of meaning. Since English writing involves grammatical problems, any sentence with grammatical errors cannot be accepted by readers. Therefore, the expressive function of “Chinglish” is particularly obvious in daily spoken English. For second-language users, many “Chinglish" words are used to by Chinese learners.

3.2 Functions of knowledge and information acquisition

I once heard a paragraph that a classmate asked a foreign teacher how to learn English. He said:

“My English is poor. I think I can"t learn it very good. So I can"t play happily every day. Yesterday I received my mother"s telephone, she told me to study hard and I am very moved... So I want to know how to learn English.”

The correct grammatical expression should be:

My English is poor. I don"t think I can learn it. Yesterday I got my mother"s telephone, she told me to study hard and I am deeply moved... So I want to know how to learn English.

In such a short paragraph, we can clearly know that the student said such a long paragraph of “Chinglish" mainly to get the "how to learn English shortcut" information from the foreign teacher. Therefore, the beginning is a typical sentence “My English is poor”. Then he translated word for word in accordance with the Chinese custom of "I think I can"t learn it very good. In fact, each of the above sentences is "Chinglish". The purpose of the students is to obtain knowledge and information, although the foreign teacher later understood, but the foreign teacher felt very confused. The foreign teacher said that when he heard such “Chinglish" in the teaching process, he felt very confused, but over time, when he changed his mind, he could know what the students said, although it was a little difficult.

4. The Social Roots of “Chinglish"

English and Chinese belong to two different language families, and they have many differences in phonetics, grammar and cultural background. Therefore, Chinese people will encounter many difficulties in learning English. “Chinglish” is one of the main problems affecting Chinese students" English learning. There are three main reasons for this.

4.1 Ddifferent modes of thinking between English and Chinese

Thinking, the reflection process of human brain to objective reality, is a kind of spiritual activity produced by human beings from social practice. There is a close relationship between thinking and language. On the one hand, thinking is inseparable from language. If there is no language, there is no way to define the form of thinking; On the other hand, thinking dominates language at the same time. Language is the organizer of human thinking and cognition. Without thinking, there is no diversity and richness in language. As we all know, the Chinese value commonness and always look at things from the perspective of others. Westerners emphasize individuality and put more emphasis on expressing opinions from their own standpoint. For example, the order of people"s names. Chinese people put the family name first in order to emphasize the family concept. While in the west, the order of names is just the opposite. The rule is "first name, family name". Such as “Tony Stark”, Tony is the first name representing individuality, and Stark is the family name that stands for commonness.

The differences in thinking between English and Chinese are also reflected in the different meanings of the same words. In English, "back" is used to refer to past time, and "forward" is used to refer to future time. The Chinese use "前" to refer to past time and "后" to refer to future time. Chen Ziang, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, wrote: “前不见古人，后不见来者，念天地之悠悠，独怆然而涕下 ”. In the poem "前" refers to the past and "后" refers to the future. The Chinese distinguish time by looking to the past, while the British and Americans distinguish time by looking to the future. Therefore, we can tell that English words "back" and "forward" are equivalent to "前" and "后" in Chinese.

4.2 Negative language transfer

Odlin emphasizes that language transfer is a kind of cross-language influence, which stems from the similarities and differences between the mother tongue and the target language acquired or not acquired by learners, that is, the unconditional application of the language features of the mother tongue to the target language to be established in the system. If the language features of the mother tongue and the target language are the same or similar, the mother tongue will produce positive transfer to the target language, which will contribute to the acquisition of the target language. On the contrary, negative transfer will occur and hinder the acquisition of target language. Comparing Chinese and English, the former belongs to sino-tibetan language family, while the latter belongs to indo-European language family, so there are great differences in phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics between the two languages. Chinese students are accustomed to the phonetic lexical and syntactic system of Chinese since they have been learning Chinese since childhood, and they will automatically apply Chinese grammar and pragmatic rules in the process of English learning and application, which leads to the emergence of "Chinglish". Chinese students (usually adults) are used to applying the expressions and ways of thinking of their mother tongue to foreign language learning, which is very difficult to change. When they speak and write, they can basically say that they are engaged in "translation", that is, the mode of their mother tongue plus the language symbols of the foreign language to express ideas.

Here is an example:

A: Could you tell me how can I get to the station, please?

B: Yes. Walk along the street, turn left the third corner; you will see the station is right in front of you.

A: Oh, I know, thank you.

B: You are welcome.

It is easy to see from the context that A understands the way to the station after B’s explanation. In the original text, A’s words means that I understand, but under the influence of Chinese thinking, A directly uses one of the corresponding words known in English— “know”. “I know” is originally a grammatically correct sentence, but it is not appropriate to put it here. “I see” can express the original meaning of the speaker, and also accord with the expression habits of English. Because there is a difference between "I see" and "I know", the Collins Advanced English Learning Dictionary defines “know” and “see” as follows:

If you know a fact, a piece of information, or an answer, you have it correctly in your mind.

If you see what someone means or see why something happened, you understand what they mean or understand why it happened.

It can be seen that they are not only different in meaning, but also in different situations. "I know" usually means that the speaker has already understood the facts; "I see" means that the speaker did not understand something, and that he now understands it after being interpreted by others or observed and studied by himself. In the original text, the speaker used the word "I know", meaning that I have already known it. So it ran counter to his original intention. Speaker A did not know where the station was, but after B’s explanation. Using "I know" here brings impatience to each other, so it is better to use "I see" here.

4.3 Cross-cultural influence

Cultural custom is the unity of many unit events presented in people"s social activities and communication, and it is a kind of conventional code formed by each nation according to its own different life experience. As is known to all, both Chinese and English have a long history, carrying different national cultural characteristics and cultural information. The conflict between Chinese and western culture and customs mainly includes the following aspects: Chinese "modesty" and western “pride". China is a state of etiquette, influenced and nurtured by the traditional Confucianism, and the Chinese often show modesty and caution in expressing their own thoughts and receiving praise from others. It feels that this is the only way to be polite: but the West is a world full of competition and challenges. In the fierce social competition, Westerners must try their best to show their strengths and affirm themselves in order to be recognized. So the language always shows pride and show off, do not hesitate to praise their own words. Because they do not understand these differences, the Chinese often make jokes when they are praised.

Such as: My English is very poor.

This is one of the most common phrases used by Chinese students, sometimes out of self-pity, sometimes true. But if foreigners" foreign language is not good, they will say: I still have a few problems, but I am getting better.

5. The Negative Effects of “Chinglish"

Although the existence of “Chinglish” is inevitable, from a long-term point of view, “Chinglish” is unfavorable to English teaching and learning. The negative effects of “Chinglish” mainly include the following two aspects.

5.1 The negative impacts on one"s English learning and employment

The long-term use of “Chinglish” is extremely disadvantageous to one"s English learning. English learners often complain that they have learned English for more than ten years, but they still can"t write bright articles or speak fluent English. In addition, “Chinglish” has a negative impact on individual employment. Many students are used to using “Chinglish” to talk with their friends and teachers when they are in school. But when they go out of school and enter the job market, especially when talking to foreigners, they tend to be overwhelmed and sometimes make mistakes at work because of errors in translation or understanding.

5.2 The negative impacts on society

“Chinglish” is not only disadvantageous to language acquisition, but also has a lot of negative effects on society, especially in the translation of public signs. For example, there was a "watch out" sign on the side of the road that said, "To take notice of safe; the slippery are very crafty." This expression has left many foreigners at a loss. This is a typical copy of the Chinese sentence pattern to express the meaning of English, we can say: "Caution, Wet Floor." Additionally, the author also saw the slogan "Smoking is prohibited if you will be fined 50 Yuan." in a public place. If it is interpreted literally, it means that "if you are fined $50, smoking will not be allowed", which is very puzzling. In fact, what the author wants to say is "No smoking, and violators will be fined $50". So we can say, "No smoking, 50 Yuan will be charged per violation. There are numerous examples of vague, even erroneous signs that fill places in cities and cities across the country, causing inconvenience to many people.

6. The Suggested Solutions to Avoiding “Chinglish”

As mentioned above, the existence of “Chinglish" hinders the development of students" oral English to idiomatic English. As a teacher, it is incumbent upon him/her to adopt certain strategies to correct “Chinglish".

From the perspective of linguistics, British linguist Corder believes that in the process of second language acquisition, learners" mistakes are inevitable, and learners often adopt one when learning a language. One kind of learning strategy is strategy of transfer. When the language rules or cultural background knowledge of the mother tongue and the target language are the same, there will be a positive interlingul transfer, so that the learner can say the correct target language sentences. On the contrary, there will be a negative transfer, so that the learner can say the wrong or non-standard target language sentences.

According to this theory, teachers should understand the basis and characteristics of students and promote the emergence of positive transfer of mother tongue. Compared with the social roots of “Chinglish”, teachers can adopt the following teaching strategies:

(1) studying “Chinglish” and avoid “Chinglish”

As a teacher, we should first study the linguistic features of “Chinglish" and its influence. On this basis, efforts should be made to improve their English teaching level, in the teaching of difficulties should look up the dictionary rather than imagine some of the meaning of English. When teachers face students, every sentence may have a profound impact on students. In order to make students overcome “Chinglish", as a teacher, they should first achieve idiomatic fluency in oral English and avoid using “Chinglish”.

(2) using the method of listening and speaking in teaching

In the 1940s, the method of listening and speaking was put forward in the United States. Emphasis is placed on constantly practicing the structure of sentence patterns and cultivates oral English listening and speaking ability. It is also called "pattern method" or "structure method". Its theoretical basis is American structuralism linguistics and behaviorist psychology. Listening and speaking method has a few basic principles: first, listening and speaking lead. Listening and speaking, reading and writing as a supplement. When students lay a certain foundation for listening and speaking, they will be taught to read and write to promote listening and speaking. This principle requires the teacher to make full use of the classroom and let the students speak actively in the course. At the same time, teachers should be proficient in English teaching to create a learning environment for students. Second, practice repeatedly and form habits. We should learn English in teaching students spend most of their time in imitation, memory and other practical exercises. On the basis of a lot of practice, they develop a new set of language habits, which need teachers to repeat and students to talk to each other constantly. Third, on the basis of students" repeated practice, teachers should correct learners" mistakes strictly and timely and avoid forming wrong habits. Fourth, the second language acquisition is also a process of stimulation and reaction. Teachers should use modern teaching techniques such as slides and other ways to strengthen stimulation, so that students can be sensitive to their mistakes and correct them in time.

(3) cultivating students" cultural awareness and train their English thinking

There is a close relationship between language and thinking. Language and thinking are two important components of human social communication, which are mutually interrelated. For English learners, the most important thing is to realize the different ways of thinking between English and Chinese, so as to realize the change of thinking.

Cultivating of English mode of thinking is not easily achieved. It is necessary to strengthen the study and understanding of cultural differences between China and Britain. This can not only avoid a lot of embarrassment and misunderstanding but also improve the quality of teachers themselves. Teachers should look for opportunities to organize students to enjoy English songs, classic movies and TV dramas. The clear pronunciation in these films and TV works, as well as the expressions of common slang words, can arouse students’ motivation for cross-cultural communication. In this way, students can learn more authentic English expression in order to gain access to more foreign cultures. Therefore, students are encouraged to read more original English works to cultivate their awareness of cross-cultural communication.

7. Conclusion

“Chinglish”, as a linguistic phenomenon, has its social roots and functions. Its formation has a close relationship with cultural differences, thinking differences and so on. Its existence has caused the influence that cannot be ignored to the individual"s study and even the society"s development. By revealing the social roots of its existence, teachers can make better use of scientific methods to correct it and make more and more students understand and attach importance to the impact of “Chinglish” on our language learning.

Works Cited

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[Chen Yuan: “sociolinguistic” shanghai: Kuelin Press, (1983) ]

邓炎昌，刘润清: 《语言与文化》. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，(1988):115~120

[Deng Yanchang, Liu Runqing: “Language and culture” Beijing: Foreign language Teaching and Research Press, (1988):115~120 ]

Ellis R. “Second Language Acquisition”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997

桂田: 从社会语言学角度看“中式英语”现象.考试周刊，(2010):46

[Gui Tian: “The analysis of “Chinglish” from the Perspective of Sociolinguistics” The Examination , (2010):46]

贾智勇：《母语负迁移对英语学习的影响》.重庆工商大学学报，（2005）：4.

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