A Study Of British Chinese Vocabulary Based On Newspaper Corpus

British Chinese is the common language of British Chinese based on Mandarin.Based on the language contact theory and code-switching theory,this paper collect five major British Chinese newspapers with large circulation from 2017 to 2020,such as UK Chinese,Sing Tao Daily(European Edition),Chinese Business Gazette European Edition,The Chinese Weekly,and European Times(British Edition).From these papers,we sort out and classify British Chinese vocabulary,summarize the main characteristics of British Chinese vocabulary and explore its causes,and put forward specific suggestions for the phenomenon of British Chinese vocabulary to be standardized.The research of this paper can enrich the research materials of Chinese in Europe and can add entries to related dictionaries such as the Global Chinese Dictionary,and add materials to the global Chinese corpus.Besides,the study can reduce unnecessary communication barriers between British Chinese and Chinese people.There are five chapters in the text,the specific contents are as follows:Chapter Ⅰ is the introduction,which briefly introduces the general situation of the English-speaking community,defines the related concepts such as “Chinese”,“Greater Chinese”,“British Chinese” and “English Chinese-specific words”,summarizes the current research situation of vocabulary in English-speech community in Britain and America and Chinese-speech community in Southeast Asia,introduces the research content and research significance,theoretical basis and research methods of this paper,and introduces the source and extraction methods of corpus.Chapter Ⅱ summarizes the previous classifications of Overseas Chinese vocabulary,and then divides British Chinese vocabulary into two categories: basic vocabulary and characteristic vocabulary.This chapter focuses on the study of characteristic words,using Putonghua as a reference,and divides characteristic words into two categories: words corresponding to Putonghua and non-corresponding words.Non-corresponding words can be divided into “words unique to British Chinese” and“words common to other Chinese-speaking communities”.Corresponding words include two types: “words of same meaning but in different forms” and “words in same form but different meanings” with Mandarin.Chapter Ⅲ adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to conclude that British Chinese vocabulary has the following two characteristics: strong compatibility of words;lack of stability and standardization.The compatibility of words is reflected in the diversity of word sources.The lack of stability and standardization is reflected in the fact that there are many variants of "word variables" and a large number of abbreviations,such as random abbreviations and excessive abbreviations.Chapter Ⅳ analyzes the causes of the above characteristics of British Chinese vocabulary,which can be divided into two aspects: language itself and social factors.The factors of language itself are mainly explained from two aspects: the imbalance of language development and the characteristics of Chinese words.Social factors are complicated.This paper mainly analyzes the influencing factors of English-Chinese vocabulary variation from the perspective of language contact.Chapter Ⅴ studies the standardization of British Chinese words.This study found the following phenomena to be standardized: the coexistence of complex and simplified words;many synonyms;many variant characters,variant words and typos;excessive abbreviations and other phenomena.According to the characteristics of British Chinese vocabulary and the phenomenon to be standardized,this paper puts forward specific methods of word standardization and suggestions for English Chinese vocabulary teaching.At last,it draws a conclusion,which summarizes the full text.Besides,it points out the innovations and shortcomings of this study.