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Interpretations of “Chinglish”: Native Speakers, Language Learners and the Enregisterment of a Stigmatized Code

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2010

Eric Steven Henry
Eric Steven Henry
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
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Abstract

As a linguistic curiosity, Chinglish has long fascinated native speakers of English, prompting numerous studies that analyze its form with a view towards either eliminating it or accepting it as a viable Standard English variant. In this article, I examine how various social groups involved in foreign language education in China, including Chinese students, foreign teachers and linguists, enregister Chinglish as a linguistic variety. I argue that Chinglish is not distinguished by the presence or absence of any particular linguistic feature, but a label produced in the intersubjective engagements between language learners and native speakers. Chinglish is structured by and reinforces the relations of expertise within the Chinese English language speech community, thus representing larger anxieties about nationalism and modernization in a global context.*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 39 , Issue 5 , November 2010 , pp. 669 - 688
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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