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Kingsley Bolton, Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2006

JAMES STANLAW
JAMES STANLAW
Affiliation:
Anthropology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790, stanlaw@ilstu.edu
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Extract

Kingsley Bolton, Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xviii, 338. Hb US$70.00.

Almost everyone knows that many places in the non-Anglophone world have had a long and tumultuous love affair with English, yet few are aware of China's flirtation, if not infatuation, with it. But with at least 200 million students of English in mainland China alone (Yong & Campbell 1995) – more than two-thirds of the population of the United States – the romance could hardly have been hidden for long. Kingsley Bolton has been letting the secret out for the past decade. This fascinating, timely, and very readable new book is the result of his many years of perseverance. In short, English in China has had “a long and barely remembered history” (p. xiii) which stretches back to the beginnings of maritime trade of Britain with Canton and Macao.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS
Information
Language in Society , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 460 - 463
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCES

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Kachru, Braj B. (1997). Past imperfect: The other side of English in Asia. In Larry Smith & Michael Forman (eds.), World Englishes 2000, selected essays Vol. 14, 68–89. Honolulu: University of Hawaii East-West Center.
Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The languages of China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Yong, Zhao, & Campbell, Keith (1995). English in China. World Englishes 14:377–90.Google Scholar