A Study Of South And Southeast Asian International Students’ Comprehensibility And Acceptability Towards Chinese English

A considerable number of scholars has been devoted to the study of Chinese English over the last three to four decades,contributing to the theoretical advancement of many academic fields,including World Englishes,language attitude,and intercultural communication.However,empirical studies focusing on international students’comprehensibility and acceptability of Chinese English in written discourses are scarce.Therefore,this study aimed to explore the South and Southeast Asian international students’comprehensibility and acceptability of written Chinese English from cultural,economic and political discourses.Data,consisting of 172 questionnaires and 10 interviews,were collected from South and Southeast Asian students who were studying at three major universities in Kunming,the capital city of Yunnan Province.The data were analyzed through some quantitative data analysis methods（e.g.,One-way ANOVA,One Sample T-test,and Nonparametric Tests）,and the interview transcripts were evaluated through text analysis.Based on the analysis of the questionnaire data and interview,the main findings showed that 1)participants,averagely,were aware of and held positive attitudes towards the existence of World Englishes and different varieties of English（M=5.99,out of 7）,which was different from some scholar’s studies.And their gender（p=0.201>0.05）and mother tongue（p=0.167>0.05）did not pose influence on their responses;2)although,Chinese English did not draw much attention from participants,they demonstrated great performance in comprehensibility of Chinese English in economic,political and cultural discourses,and statistical differences were found amongst participants’comprehensibility of three discourses（p=0.00<0.01）;3)almost as same as the results discovered in their comprehensibility of Chinese English,participants believed that those Chinese English in written discourses were acceptable.Compared with the Test Value of 15 points,participants’acceptability reached a relatively high level,which were M_{（Economic Discourse）}=19.30556,M_{（Political Discourse）}=18.92222 and M_{（Cultural Discourse）}=19.19444.Besides,further exploration revealed that the correlation between participants’comprehensibility and acceptability reached 0.83（p=0.00<0.01）,which meant that their acceptability of Chinese English was deeply influenced by their comprehensibility;4)the results of questionnaires and interview demystified the main reasons of participants’responses:participants were familiar with the expressions of Chinese English with abundant media resources;and the enhancement of China’s external influence made them pay more attention to Chinese society and its development.The results of the study might contribute to a better understanding of the status quo of Chinese English and enrich the research perspective of Chinese English.Implications of the findings were discussed at the end of this thesis.The thesis closed with a brief description of the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.