Chinese English Majors' Language Attitude Towards “China English”

Globalization and nativization result in English varieties, and “China English” is an emerging English variety. “China English” takes Standard English as its core to express unique Chinese things by means of Chinese borrowings, translation, literal translation and regeneration, and it can be accepted by native speaker with phonological, lexical, syntactic and textual features. But it is different from the distorted “Chinese English”. Because “Chinese English” is produced by English learners in China when they are negatively influenced by Chinese language rules, it is sometimes grammatically correct, but the choices of words, phrases or the means of expression do not conform to Standard English, and it still cannot be accepted by native speakers. Language attitude is of much importance in English learning and teaching, which can be defined as the evaluation of one person or a group to a language or a language variety, including cognitive attitude, affective attitude and behavioral attitude. Research on “China English” has covered its emerging reasons, concepts, features, significance, corpus construction as well as future prospects; however, research on language attitude, especially among Chinese English majors, is not as fledged as other aspects. This study explores the language attitude towards “China English” of English majors in China from cognitive, affective and behavioral perspectives, influencing variables, correlations between cognitive attitude, affective attitude and behavioral attitude and their relevance to general language attitude.Quantitative research was conducted through questionnaire by 132 college English majors from Beijing University of Technology. Besides, the qualitative research was employed through interviews done by three of the surveyed students. Descriptive and inferential data analyses show that: 1) most college English majors hold a positive language attitude towards “China English”; 2) English competence and grade have greater influence on language attitude compared with English learning time and gender, especially on behavioral attitude; 3) correlations between cognitive attitude, affective attitude and behavioral attitude are all positive, which indicates they are mutually promoted; 4) cognitive attitude, affective attitude and behavioral attitude all have high correlation with the general language attitude positively, which shows they all contribute to the improvement of language attitude. In addition, on the bases of the qualitative research, it is found that the low acceptance of some “China English” expressions is caused by three main reasons: 1) the inadequate knowledge about World Englishes and “China English”; 2) the unclear distinctions between “China English” and “Chinese English”; 3) the lack of confidence for the intelligibility of “China English”.This study avails to fulfill the academic study on language attitude towards “China English”, provide guideline for English teaching and learning, and help English major students identify “China English” for better cultural promotion.