A Study Of China English-from The Sociolinguistic Perspective

Language is the tool of thinking and the vehicle of culture. Now English has become amultinational, multicultural, multifunction and global language. Frequent language contactbetween different languages will cause their variation. China English (CE) is an inevitable resultof the long-time contact and gradual integration of English language with Chinese culture. Inspite of different opinions on China English, most scholars have recognized its existence andstudied it from various points of view, for example, the study of its definition, linguistic featuresin phonology, lexical, syntactic and discourse, and its differences from Chinglish. However, thestudy of China English should not be separated from the social and cultural context it is. In thispaper, China English is studied from the perspective of sociolinguistics on the basis of previousstudy of it.According to sociolinguistics, language variation is closely related to the social andcultural context, and gets enriched through language borrowing as well, based on which, thisthesis aims to investigate the deep culture reflected by China English, the superficial phenomenain the formation of China English through language borrowing, and the external social contextthat influences its evolution and development.For this study, the author collected 262 CE items from three publications (The New YorkTimes, China Daily and Beijing Review) and then classified and analyzed them with quantitativeand qualitative methods. It is found that, China English reflects material culture, institutionalculture and mental culture with Chinese characteristics, and these cultures have their ownfeatures; in language borrowing in the formation of China English, borrowing ways of loanword,loan translation and loanblend are used, and there are phenomena of phonological andgrammatical change; it is also found that in different stages of its evolution and development,China English is influenced by different social context. Finally, some implications forcross-cultural communication and English language teaching are given.This thesis is composed mainly by five chapters. Chapter one makes the literature reviewof the study of China English and World Englishes home and abroad. Chapter two introduces thetheoretical foundations of this study, including related theories of sociolinguistics and issuesabout China English. Chapter three gives the research question, data collection and analysis method. Chapter four presents the research procedure and answers research questions. Chapterfive gives some some implications for cross-cultural communication and English languageteaching.