Study on the Cause of Chinglish Formation

1、中国式英语的成因分析study on the cause of chinglish formationcontentsabstract1key words11. the introduction of chinglish.22. the introduction of pidgin english.23. main characteristics of pidgin english.24. the relationship between chinglish and pidgin english.3 5. the essence of chinglish.36. the types of ch

2、inglish.47. affection of chinglish.67.1 chinglish in chinese-english translation67.2 chinglish in english writing.67.2.1 lexical deficiency.77.2.2 syntactical incompetence.88. the overcoming of chinglish.109. some points of overcoming chinglish.1210. conclusion.13reference14study on the cause of chi

3、nglish formation摘 要：语言是人类生活中必不可少的一部分，语言是思维的一面镜子，语言是人们相互之间的交流工具，英语也不例外。目前，英语仍然是世界上最流行的语言。在中国，越来越多的人开始意识到英语的重要性，并开始学习英语。在这种潮流的带动下，一种必然的语言现象形成了中国式英语。这种中国式英语的形成和中国人的思维方式，习惯，文化传统和英语教学有着必然的联系，它们是相辅相成、互相影响和制约的，也导致中国式英语根深蒂固，发展迅速，从而使大部分的中国人说的英语都不规范，甚至闹出许多笑话。因此，本文要剖析中国式英语的形成原因、本质、类型、影响及其解决方案，这些对于教师掌握规律、在教学中对症

4、下药帮助学生克服中国式英语、尽快尽好地掌握规范英语是大有裨益的。关键词： 中国式英语；语言环境；母语；影响； abstract: language is an integral part of our life and humanity, language is a mirror of the mind, and it is a means of communication. english is of no exception. now, english is also the most popular language in the world, more and more chinese

5、 people aware the importance of english and begin to learn english in china. led by this trend , an inevitable language phenomenon formattedchinglish. there is an inevitable relationship between chinglish and chinese thinking method, habit, cultural tradition and english teaching. they complement ea

6、ch other, influence and restrict each other, which make chinglish deeply rooted, quickly developed, and even make most of english learners speak unstandard english. so this paper will analyze the chinglish formation cause, essence, types, affection, and solution of this kind of chinglish. it is very

7、 necessary for teachers to grasp the language regularity and help students overcome chinglish in teaching, make students know and master the standard english during their learning period as soon as possible.key words: chinglish; language environment; native language; influence study on the cause of

8、chinglish formation1. the introduction of chinglish chinglish is a kind of abnormal english, which is influenced by the mode of chinese thinking or culture, and does not obey the english expression habit. this kind of english appears in the course of studying english of chinese, though temporarily,

9、but it is a kind of inevitable language phenomenon. “though this kind of english sometimes sounds unstandard to english native speakers, but rely on language empathy”, (du zhengming, 1998) it can still be accepted, thus make communication succeed; but sometimes this kind of english will make the oth

10、er side puzzled, people who speak chinglish will offend the other side or make a stupid mistake, and breakdown communication. this kind of chinglish belongs to the pragmatic failures, which are led by the pragmatic negative transfer. it is a problem that the teacher should solve especially in englis

11、h teaching. probe the formation cause, essence, types, affection, and solution of this kind of chinglish, it is very necessary for teachers to grasp the language regularity and to help students overcome chinglish in teaching, make students know and master the standard english during their learning p

12、eriod as soon as possible.2. the introduction of pidgin englishpidgin english is a kind of mixing language. its appearance is the general phenomenon of two kinds or many kinds of languages initial contacting. in our country, pidgin english once lasted as long as three period of century, especially i

13、n guangzhou and shanghai, once played an important role in chinese and foreign culture. the cradle of pidgin english is guangzhou, but after the five places in nanjing treaty has been opened, the foreign trade status of shanghai exceeded guangzhou, pidgin between the concessions of great britain and

14、 france, quickly gathered a group of vagrants, who lived on irregular english, became the go-between of chinese and foreign businessmen, facilitated the commercial trade. the original people engaged in this kind of translation activity are the veteran who came from guangzhou, then gradually localiza

15、tion later, form the open-air interpreter of shanghai, standardize pidgin english of shanghai, and called it pidgin english. though this translated name is not proper, but it has already been sanctified by usage, so people can only follow the track.3. main characteristics of pidgin english (1). the

16、vocabulary is limitedpidgin english of china has only about 700 words, so a word has the meaning of several words concurrently. for example: my is the synonym languages of i, we, mine and ours. (2). the phoneme is simplified the general pidgin english language has only three vowels: i, a, u. so shee

17、p and ship are pronounced as sip without exception in pidgin english; the consonant system is simplified greatly too. for instance: sip can be regarded as the forms of simplifying of cheap and chip. (3). the grammar is simpleno morphological change, such as counting, sex, dose, calling, tense, voice

18、 and so on. in china, pidgin english is nearly expressed according to chinese word order. for example: long time no see you (not see you for a long time) is a typical example.4. the relationship between chinglish and pidgin english although chinglish and pidgin english are both called english by chi

19、nese people, they have many differences. first, chinglish belongs to the british english or american english, but pidgin english doesnt have its own language system. second, the vocabulary, phoneme and grammar of chinglish is same as british english or american english, but these things of pidgin en

20、glish are limited. third, the formation of chinglish and pidgin english is different. chinglish is a kind of english, which is influenced by chinese thinking or culture, and does not obey the english expression habit, pidgin english is a kind of mixing english.5. the essence of chinglish5.1british l

21、inguist corder wrote:“the learner's mistake is unavoidable in the course of learning the second language, it is a kind of study tactics for the learner to adopt in order to study a new language. strategy of transfer, namely during the learning process of the second language, the learner applies

22、mechanically the language system of the mother tongue and target language, incomplete language of target language or the cultural knowledge to understand and express new language phenomenon. when the language rule or culture background of the mother tongue are same as the target language, language p

23、ositive transfer will happen, the learner can speak correct target language sentence. however, when the language rule or culture background of the mother tongue are different from target language, language negative transfer will take place. learner will say incorrect target language sentence.” (cord

24、er. s. p, 1967)according to this theory, it is true that chinglish is the result that chinese students use strategy of transfer while studying english, also a result which use chinese to enclose english, and the interference variant of mother tongue.5.2 selinker l. has pointed out that:“it is a crea

25、tive course to study the language, the language that students used during the process of studying the language are not unalterable, it is developed constantly. the mistakes that the learner makes while learn the second language are developmental errors. students utilize existing knowledge and experi

26、ence, to create intermediary language which is reduced gradually by the skillful grasp to the target language and deeply understand to the culture of target language, and will totally disappear finally.” (selinker l, 1985)from this we know that the production of the chinglish is a stage for chinese

27、students which must be passed by in the course of english studying.6. the types of chinglishchinglish can be divided into two big classes from pragmatical category 6.1 the chinglish is a kind of language which students set chinese language habit into english, so the english they express and use is n

28、ot standard, this kind of mistake is called pragmatical mistake. example (1): teacher: good morning, students.students: good morning, teacher. for english beginner, we can often hear this in their dialogue. speaking from the psychology, this is mainly the result that mother tongue interfered. in chi

29、na, a lot of occupational name can be used as address when they are used alone or added surname thereafter. for instance: mr. li, coach wang, carpenter sun, and so on. chinese students apply this kind of expression habit in english mechanically while learn english at the beginning, and speak chingli

30、sh in example (1 ). but only minority expression in english that the noun of the occupational name can be used as the address. such as doctor, professor, judge and so on. example (2): shop-assistant: what do you want? foreign tourist: in example (2), chinese shop-assistant mechanically translated th

31、eir habitual greeting language “what can i do for you?” into “what do you want?” this is not sounded like service asking to english native speaker. in english, it is very stiff and rude, and easy to cause the other people unhappy. example (3): a: hello, may i speak to wang ping? b: i'm wang ping

32、.the answer in example (3) is the chinglish which is very common when the learner answers a call. perhaps student clearly understand that the correct answer should be speaking (or wang ping speaking), but the expression habit which has been used for many years will enable them make that incorrect an

33、swer subconsciousness.the instance of the above mentioned between chinglish and english teaching is numerous. someone translate the foreign teacher's lobby into restroom for foreign teachers. restroom is a mild and roundabout language of the bathroom in english，this kind of translation would mak

34、e the english native speaker annoyed and sneered. 6.2 chinglish formatted because the learner lack of the social cultural factor understanding of the target language, or the cultural differences between mother tongue and target language. this kind of mistake is a social activity and pragmatical mist

35、ake. for example: in chinese culture and english culture, there are different values to the same thing. the things which be paid attention to in chinese culture, may not be paid attention to or even despised in english culture. in this way, when chinese students communicate with english native speak

36、er, and blindly praise the things which are not laudable in english culture, they will speak chinglish which belong to social activity pragmatical mistake. for example: chinese think that it is a thing that is worth congratulating and flaunting that children can be admitted to university, but in u.s

37、. a., because higher education is highly popular, people think that it is very usually. this kind of different measurement yardstick to things will most likely cause the production of chinglish. for another example: in china, two friends have not seen each other for many years, they meet and often s

38、ay: you do not change much or you haven't changed much. in order to show affection, friendness, this is usually a kind of word of praise. but in english culture, change is praised highly, do not change is devalued. such different value orientation is very easy to cause misunderstanding in cross-

39、cultural communication.because of the different culture background, native speakers of chinese and english sometimes have different appraisal to the relative importance of cooperative principle & politeness principle. (ellis. r, 1985) this is very easy to cause the production of the chinglish to

40、o. for instance: after dr. brown made an excellent report about “people and nature” for chinese students, a chinese student says: “dr. brown, you gave us such an attractive talk that i'd like to listen to you for another whole morning. here, chinese student followed the politeness principle, to

41、praise dr. brown's report, but this sentence is sounded that embellish an argument to the english native speaker, violated quality maxim cooperative principle. dr. brown may feel very awkward and thought by mistake that the report that students were satirizing him was tediously long and dulled.

42、in this case, americans usually say: i must say, i really appreciate your talk this morning, dr. brown.in addition, “in chinese culture and english culture, the basic language principle ( such as greeting, say good-bye, respect, apologize, refuse), demonstrate certain diffenence because of the facto

43、rs change of social culture, these differences will cause the production of chinglish too”. (yang narang; yan hong, 2002)the appearance of chinglish is unavoidable, but it can be overcomed. it is a tendency that teacher should help student overcome chinglish in english teaching. 7. affection of chin

44、glish7.1 chinglish in chinese-english translation“two tendencies often occur in chinese-english translation. one is going after easy and smooth reading and beautiful language at the expense of the true meaning of the original. another is rigidly sticking to the original words, and the translation tu

45、rns out to be obscure and hard to understand. it reads more like chinese than english.” (jiang yajun, 1995) this is what is usually known as chinglish. it appears more frequently in translation related to political or foreign affairs.   such translation calls for a strong sense of political res

46、ponsibility, accurate understanding and precise and measured wording. moreover, it has to be done without delay. a translator more often than not considers it to be safer to do literal translation. therefore, he/she is apt to do word for word translation to fit in mechanically with the form without

47、getting across the essence of the original. for lack of time, it is often impossible to go over the translation carefully, do polishing or make it readable and elegant. in addition, new chinese words and expressions keep coming out and within limited time, it is difficult to find corresponding versi

48、ons in english. as a result, chinglish steps forward.  chinglish is one of the major factors adversely affecting the quality of translation. it is among the stickiest problems that cry out for solution. of course, it is necessary for us to make a theoretical study of how to tackle it, but there

49、 is even a greater need to address it in practice. once chinglish is rectified, chinese-english translation would read more like idiomatic english and come nearer to a higher standard, namely, “faithfulness, smoothness and elegance”.7.2 chinglish in english writingit is well known that chinese and e

50、nglish are poles apart. however, when chinese students who are lacking a “real” english environment to learn english, they easily tend to ignore the differences between the two languages. this is particularly the case with writing. the chinese students are so familiar with their study habit of writi

51、ng in chinese practice that they often put it into practice in english writing. the result is the so-called chinglish, an awkward mixture in which ideas conceived in chinese are ungrammatically or unidiomatically expressed in english writing. “the main cause of chinglish is, apparently, linguistic i

52、nterference, but to get rid of the negative influence of the mother tongue, on the other hand, remains of paramount importance for teachers of english writing in china.” (he mingzhu, 2001) my experience in learning english makes me aware of the differences between the two languages in word choice, s

53、yntactic structures, and thought patterns by analyzing typical examples of chinglish. here i'd like to present some typical mistakes made by our chinese students.7.2.1 lexical deficiencyit seems easy to find out that chinglish often appears in the form of redundancy, which arises when students f

54、ail to understand the exact meaning of an english word. take the example of “a desk”: chinese students would say redundantly “a book desk” or “a writing desk” instead. they can't tell “a dance” and “a study” in english mean exactly “a dance party” and “a study room” in chinese. similarly, the fo

55、llowing redundant sentences are often made by our students.(1)wrong: the old man made a living by catching fish. correct: the old man made a living by fishing.(2)wrong: please hurry to walk or we'll be late. correct: please hurry up or we'll be late. (3)wrong: sue went to the shops to buy th

56、ings for me yesterday.correct: sue went shopping for me yesterday. it is understandable to chinese english teachers that chinglish is caused by inaccurate understanding of english words as shown in the above examples. nevertheless, misunderstanding the word brings about a kind of unbearable chinglis

57、h. take a look at the following sentences. (1)wrong: when i reached my wallet to find my money, i found it invisible. correct: when i reached my wallet to find my money, i found it missing/gone. (2)wrong: as the price for the jacket was too expensive, i decided not to buy it.correct: as the price fo

58、r the jacket was unreasonable/too high, i decided not to buy it.(3)wrong: i feel very painful in my right hand. correct: i feel great pain in my right hand.these sentences may sound funny to native speakers of english due to the misuse of words. keeping a good dictionary at hand while writing seems to be a good remedy for the above-mentioned chinglish. however, it is the teachers' r