Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:24:37.126Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Interpretations of “Chinglish”: Native Speakers, Language Learners and the Enregisterment of a Stigmatized Code

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2010

Eric Steven Henry
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada

Abstract

As a linguistic curiosity, Chinglish has long fascinated native speakers of English, prompting numerous studies that analyze its form with a view towards either eliminating it or accepting it as a viable Standard English variant. In this article, I examine how various social groups involved in foreign language education in China, including Chinese students, foreign teachers and linguists, enregister Chinglish as a linguistic variety. I argue that Chinglish is not distinguished by the presence or absence of any particular linguistic feature, but a label produced in the intersubjective engagements between language learners and native speakers. Chinglish is structured by and reinforces the relations of expertise within the Chinese English language speech community, thus representing larger anxieties about nationalism and modernization in a global context.*

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agha, Asif (2003). The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication 23:231–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anagnost, Ann (2004). The corporeal politics of quality (suzhi). Public Culture 16:189208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BBC (2006). Beijing stamps out poor english. BBC News. October 15. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6052800.stm.Google Scholar
Bolton, Kingsley (2002). The sociolinguistics of Hong Kong and the space for Hong Kong English. In Bolton, Kingsley (ed.), Hong Kong English: Autonomy and creativity, 2956. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Bolton, Kingsley (2003). Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Chin-Chuan (1992). Chinese varieties of English. In Kachru, Braj (ed.), The other tongue: English across cultures, 125–40. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
China Daily (2002). Beijing launches campaign to wipe out non-standard English usage. China Daily, December 6. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2002-12/06/content_146852.htm.Google Scholar
China Daily (2007). Beijing getting rid of badly translate [sic] signs. China Daily, February 27. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/27/content_814707.htm.Google Scholar
Corder, Stephen Pit (1967). The significance of learner's errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 5:161–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corder, Stephen Pit (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, David (2007). English as a global language, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Alan (2003). The native speaker: Myth and reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit (1995). Rescuing history from the nation: Questioning narratives of modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fan, Fang (2008). People mountain, people sea: A study of four Chinese English idioms on the web. English Today 24:4650.Google Scholar
Fong, Vanessa (2007). Morality, cosmopolitanism, or academic attainment? Discourses on “quality” and urban Chinese-only-children's claims to ideal personhood. City & Society 19:86113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, Sigmund (1960 [1905]). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In Strachey, James (ed.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (vol. 8). London: Hogarth.Google Scholar
Gass, Susan & Varonis, Evangeline (1994). Input, interaction, and second language production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16:283302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
He, Ping (2002). China's search for modernity: Cultural discourse in the late 20th century. Houndsmills: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Henry, Eric (2008). Speaking English in Shenyang: Language and the cosmopolitan imagination in China. Dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Hu, Xiaoqiong (2004). Why China English should stand alongside British, American, and the other ‘world Englishes.’ English Today 20:2633.Google Scholar
Jiang, Yajun (1995). Chinglish and China English. English Today 11:5153.Google Scholar
Jiang, Yajun (2003). English as a Chinese language. English Today 19:38.Google Scholar
Kachru, Braj (1986). The alchemy of English: The spread, functions, and models of non-native Englishes. New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Krashen, Stephen (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: LongmanGoogle Scholar
Kipnis, Andrew (2006). Suzhi: A keyword approach. The China Quarterly 186:295313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Wenzhong (1993). Zhongguo yingyu yu zhongshi yingyu (China English and chinglish). Waiyu Jiaoxue Yu Yanjiu (Foreign Language Teaching and Research) 4:1824.Google Scholar
Ma, Sizhou & Jiang, Guanghui (2005). Dongbei fangyan cidian (Dictionary of the dongbei dialect). Changchun: Jilin Literature and History Press.Google Scholar
Odlin, Terence (2003). Cross-linguistic influence. In Doughty, Catherine & Long, Michael (eds.) The handbook of second language acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Phillipson, Robert (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pinkham, Joan (2000). The translator's guide to chinglish. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.Google Scholar
Radtke, Oliver (2007). Chinglish: Found in translation. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.Google Scholar
Radtke, Oliver (2009). More chinglish: Speaking in tongues. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.Google Scholar
Rofel, Lisa (1999). Other modernities: Gendered yearnings in China after socialism. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selinker, Larry (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 10:209–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1996). Monoglot “standard” in America: Standardization and metaphors of linguistic hegemony. In Brenneis, Donald & Macaulay, Ronald (eds.), The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael & Urban, Greg (1996). Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Vittachi, Nury (2002). From yinglish to sado-mastication. In Bolton, Kingsley (ed.), Hong Kong English: Autonomy and creativity, 2956. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Wan, Pengjie (2005). Zhongguo yingyu yu zhongshi yingyu zhi bijiao (Comparison of China English and chinglish). Shanghai Fanyi (Shanghai Journal of Translators) 2005:4144.Google Scholar
Wang, Nongsheng (2000). Hanying fanyi zhong de chinglish (Chinglish in Chinese-to-English translation). Zhongguo Fanyi (Chinese Translators Journal) 2000:3135.Google Scholar
Wei, Yun & Fei, Jia (2003). Using English in China. English Today 19:4247.Google Scholar
Xinhua, (2007). Ahead of 2008 Olympics, Beijing says goodbye to “chinglish.” Xinhua News Service, September 28. Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/28/content_6808009.htm.Google Scholar
Yip, Virginia (1995). Interlanguage and learnability: From Chinese to English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Linda Wai Ling (1982). Inscrutability revisited. In Gumperz, John J. (ed.), Language and Social Identity, 7284. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jiangchuan, Zhuang (2000). Yetan zhongshi yingyu (Concerning chinglish). Zhongguo Fanyi (Chinese Translators Journal) 2000:710.Google Scholar