RUNDI GUO12/11 /15

The Influence of English on Modern Chinese

References:Chen, Ping. Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics. New York, NY;Cambridge, U.K;: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Web.Dong, Hongyuan, and Inc ebrary. A History of the Chinese Language. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014. Web.Liu, Jin, Hongyin Tao, and Inc ebrary. Chinese Under Globalization: Emerging Trends in Language use in China. Hackensack, N.J;Singapore;: World Scientific, 2012. Web. (Ch5-7)Meng, Ma. ”Recent Changes in the Chinese Language: A Lecture Delivered on 18th June, 1962." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 3 (1963): 51-9. Web.

Outline

BackgroundOne type of loanwords from English:

Lettered-Words as well as language changes that they signify

Other type of Changes morphology, syntax, phonology, and pragmatics

Background

The “English Fever” and the “ESL Mania” in China (beginning in the 20th century) Reasons:

English as the lingua franca in the international community Growing “language contact zone” (both physically and

virtually) English as a symbol of high social status and intellectual

ability

As a result…

English Loanwords

Traditional English loanwords in Chinese: Transliteration (phonetic loans)

巧克力 qiaokeli = chocolate; 咖啡 kafei = coffee

Calque (Semantic loans) 互联网 hulian wang = Internet ；篮球 lan qiu

= basketball A mix of the two

新西兰 Xin xilan = New Zealand

Can you spot the loanwords from English?

我坐在沙发上喝咖啡。张三喜欢打高尔夫球但不喜欢打篮球。

What about these?

我要找个 ATM 取钱。IPhone 用起来很方便，可以下载很多 APP 。他在 ins 上 at 了我。

A new type of loanwords: Letter-loans / Lettered-Words

Lettered-Words ( 字母词 zimu-ci)

English words or letters incorporated into Chinese without changing their graphic forms, forming a “Chinese-English graphic blend” Letters in their original form become legitimate characters in Chinese A recent (but prevalent) phenomenon

Used in different registers and stylistics, not restricted to online or casual use, not restricted to young people, and not restricted to colloquial (oral) form

Why? Convenience (shorthand); (or maybe, they look or sound “cool”)

Question: Are alphabetic letters really becoming part of Chinese? Or is it that

Chinese people are just using some English along with their native language (mixed language)?

Different types of Lettered-Words

Types of Lettered-Words

1. Letters as standalone words “The borrowed letter-combination becomes a

whole and free standing word in Chinese, (largely) preserving its original meaning in English

Mainly are borrowed acronyms that are nouns E.g. CPU, WTO, ATM

But occasionally they are adjectives E.g. Q (cute, adorable); in (in style, fashionable)他很 Q=he is very cute; 他很 in=he is very fashionable

Types of Lettered-Words

2. Letters as part of a Chinese word The borrowed letters are only part of a word in Chinese,

serving as a morpheme (or part of a morpheme) Typically function as stems, but occasionally they serve as

affixes attaching to Chinese stems “Logographic-alphabetic hybrid” in one word Examples: VIP 卡 (VIP-ka) : VIP Card (compounding); IT 化 (IT-hua): IT-verbalizer, Informatization (derivation)T 恤 (T xu): T-shirt (part of a morpheme)卡拉OK (ka la OK): Karaoke (part of a morpheme)ABC 们 (ABC-men): ABC-plural, American born Chinese (inflection)

Types of Lettered-Words

2. Letters as part of a Chinese word The borrowed letters are only part of a word in

Chinese, serving as a morpheme (or part of a morpheme) Typically function as stems, but occasionally they serve

as affixes attaching to Chinese stems Examples:

Borrowing of the -ing ending: 开会 ing (kaihui-ing) = having a meeting; 恋爱 ing (lian’ai-ing) = being in love

morphological change Question: Is Chinese becoming more synthetic because of

the influence from English?

Types of Lettered-Words

3. Non-borrowed lettered-words Alphabetic words that have a Chinese origin Chinese neologisms that are formed with letters rather than

characters Two subtypes

1. Formed with the initials of the Pinyin spelling of Chinese words E.g. GB, guojia biaozhun 国家标准 (national standard); LG, lao

gong 老公 (husband)2. Use of letter names as substitution of homophonic Chinese

characters Why use letters rather than its own logographic characters?

Convenience Taboo avoidance

E.g. 牛B，TMD， JB，放P

The case of “Karaoke”

卡拉 OK shortened as K (ellipsis) 唱卡拉 OK> 唱 KK became a verb (conversion)

K 歌 (to sing songs in the karaoke style)

Semantic change

Implications of Lettered-Words in Chinese

The graphic change is only a surface representation of deeper language change Such as morphological and semantic changes

Also, the use of letters in the Chinese writing system can signify “change in perception of what a written sign is: how it corresponds to the phonetic and semantic appearance of a word; how it assists Chinese native speakers in expressing themselves in the most updated manner and in due correspondence with the native language’s typological and logical nature.” (Kozha, 2012)

Other changes brought by English

Morphology Increasing prevalence of multisyllabic morpheme, which were not

common in older forms of ChineseSyntax

Grammaticalization The verb 有 you (to have) in Chinese became an auxiliary that indicates

perfectiveness Increasing use of passive construction Word-order change (regarding adverb placement)

Phonology Impact of the Romanization system (the Pinyin system)

Standardization and unification of pronunciation New sounds borrowed from English

Pragmatics Loan phrases (such as 拜拜 baibai 、哈喽 halou 、嗨 hai 、嘿 hei)

Questions? Thoughts? Comments?

English and Chinese differ significantly in every aspect (morphology, phonology, syntax, and even orthography), However, the foreign items are still so widely accepted.

We can see how big of a role language contact can play in language change.