Войдашенко Марина Васильевна, Дружина Александра Вадимовна
Омская юридическая академия, г. Омск
The history of the emergence of Chinglish
English first arrived in China in 1637, when British traders reached Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou. In the 17th century, Chinese Pidgin English originated as a lingua franca for trade between British people and mostly Cantonese-speaking Chinese people. This proto-Chinglish term "pidgin" originated as a Chinese mispronunciation of the English word "business". Pidgin usage began to decline in the late 19th century when Chinese and missionary schools began teaching Standard English. In 1982, the People's Republic of China made English the main foreign language in education. Current estimates for the number of English learners in China range from 300 to 500 million.
Chinese officials carried out campaigns to reduce Chinglish in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
Soon after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics in 2001, the Beijing Tourism Bureau established a tipster hotline for Chinglish errors on signs, such as emergency exits at the Beijing Capital International Airport reading "No entry on peacetime". In 2007, the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program (BSFLP) reported they had, "worked out 4,624 pieces of standard English translations to substitute the Chinglish ones on signs around the city", for instance, "Be careful, road slippery" instead of "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty." BSFLP chairperson Chen Lin said, "We want everything to be correct. Grammar, words, culture, everything. Beijing will have thousands of visitors coming. We don't want anyone laughing at us." Reporting from Beijing, Ben Macintyre lamented the loss of signs like "Show Mercy to the Slender Grass" because, "many of the best examples of Chinglish are delightful.
Chinglish is pervasive in present-day China "on public notices in parks and at tourist sites, on shop names and in their slogans, in product advertisements and on packages, in hotel names and literature, in restaurant names and on menus, at airports, railway stations and in taxis, on street and highway signs – even in official tourist literature."
The Global Language Monitor predicts Chinglish will thrive, and estimates that roughly 20 percent of new English words derive from Chinglish, Huang Youyi, president of the China Internet Information Center, predicts that linguistic purism could be damaged by popular Chinese words of English origin. "If we do not pay attention and we do not take measures to stop Chinese mingling with English, Chinese will no longer be a pure language in a couple of years."
Specifying Chinglish to mean "Chinese words literally translated into English". An experiment in linguistic clarity conducted by Han and Ginsberg found that mathematical terms are more readily understandable in Chinglish than English. English words for mathematics typically have Greek and Latin roots, while corresponding Chinese words are usually translations of neologisms from Western languages; thus quadrilateral (from Latin quadri-"four" and latus "sided") is generally less informative than Chinese sìbiānxíng; "four-side-shape"). For example, compare the semantic clarity of English axiom, Chinese gōnglǐ and Chinglish "universal-principle"; median and "centre-number"; or trapezoid and "ladder-figure". The study involved two groups of mathematics teachers who rated the clarity of 71 common mathematical terms. Group 1 with native speakers of Chinese judged 61% of the Chinese terms as clear; Group 2 with native speakers of English judged 45% of the English terms as clear.
Chinglish has various causes, most commonly erroneous Chinese dictionaries, translation software, and incorrect English as a foreign language textbooks. Other causes include misspelling, mediocre English-language teaching, sloppy translation, and reliance on outdated translation technology. Liu, Feather and Qian warn that:
"today's English-language publishers and teachers in China are passing on obsolete translations and incorrect rules of language to students. In turn, Chinglish gets duplicated across society, particularly now during today's period of rapid opening to the outside world
Language features of Chinglish.
Chinglish has linguistic characteristics that are different from the normative English in all linguistic levels, including phonology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse.
Another phonological feature is that speakers are unaware of the “graduation” of words which are said in different tones depending on the context. The word ‘for’ is stressed and said differently in the phrases “what is it for?” and “this is for you.” To a Chinglish speaker, the two are the same.
As Chinese grammar does not distinguish between definite and indefinite articles, Chinese speakers struggle with when to use or not use the English definite article "the".
At the syntactic level, Chinese thinking has influenced Chinglish speakers to utilize a different sequence and structure to make sentences. For English speakers, a common sequence is subject → predicate → object → adverbial. On the other hand, the Chinese sequence is subject → adverbial → predicate → object. Chinese speakers tend to leave the most important information at the back of the sentence, while English speakers present it at the front.
Four characteristics of incorrect Chinglish translations:
- Cultural meanings. The English idiom "work like a horse" means "work hard", but in China horses are rarely used as draft animals and the equivalent Chinese expression uses "Cattle".
- Problems of direct translation. Some Chinglish menus translate as "bean curd", which "sounds very unappetizing" to English speakers, instead of "tofu".
- Wordiness. Unnecessary words and convoluted sentences are hallmarks of Chinglish translation. For example, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced, "CAAC has decided to start the business of advance booking and ticketing", which could simply say "CAAC now accepts advance booking and ticketing."
- Wrong word order.
Chinglish reflects the influence of Chinese syntax and grammar.For instance, Chinese verbs are not necessarily conjugated and there is no equivalent article for English "the", both of which can create awkward translations.
The main difference between languages is the unequal use of words, namely in their meanings and subwords.