美國留學生作業：英語學習的英語思維模式
我們的母語是漢語,中國不像美國那樣，美國是英國的分支之一,中國已經被中華文化洗禮了約五千年。它形成了自己的結構和語法系統，并且是由中國的思維方式打造，這深深地影響了它的使用者。隨著世界經濟的全球化和一體化的發展,英語應該是我們學習的第二語言，我們看到數以百萬計的中國人在中學開始學習英語。現在,小學生也有英語課。然而,我們根深蒂固的思維方式是學習一門外語的瓶頸,學習英語非常真實,文化背景大大不同于中國人。因此,一種英語與漢語思維模式和英語形式應運而生。
英語是一門世界性語言，在對外交往中扮演著重要的角色，在我國有著眾多的英語學習者，人們往往會受到文化、思維模式、語言習慣等影響，久而久之就形成了一種明顯帶有漢語特色的英語，即“中式英語”。中式英語不符合英語規則或習慣表達，不能被以英語為母語者接受。在我國經常能夠在公共場所看到用中式英語書寫的標語，指示牌等，影響了我國的國際形象。本文針對中式英語存在的問題，對其表現進行分析，闡述中式英語形成的原因及其影響，并提出了改善措施，以期改善漢英翻譯中的中式英語的弊端。
Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….1
Abstract(Chinese)…………………………………………………………………...2
Ⅰ.Introduction………………………………………………………………………3
Ⅱ. A Brief Review of Chinglish……………………………………………………4
2.1 Definition……………………………………………………………………….4
2.2 History……………………………………………………………………….5
2.3 Feature of Chinglish…………………………………………………………5#p#分頁標題#e#
Ⅲ. Manifestation of Chinglish………………………………………………………...6
3.1 Difference in Modes of Thinking………………………………………………7
3.2 Different Collocation…………………………………………………………...7
3.3 Repetition in Chinglish………………………………………………………..8
Ⅳ. The Causes of Chinglish…………………………………………………………..9
4.1 Differences between Western and Eastern Cultures…………………………..10
4.2 Transfer of Mother Tongue………………………………………………...10
4.3 The Creation of Chinglish for Amusement………………………………….11
Ⅴ. Suggestions to Handling Chinglish……………………………………………...12
5.1 Create an Environment for Language Learning …………………………….13
5.2 Doing More Translation Exercise …………………………………………….13
Ⅵ. The Influence of Chinglish ………………………………………………………14
Ⅶ. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………14
Reference…………………………………………………………………………….15
Abstract
English is an international language, it plays an important role in outside communication. There are numerous English Learners in China, during learning English people always affected by culture、thinking mode、language habit、etc.，with the passage of time it has become a kind of English with obvious Chinese characteristics, namely “Chinglish”. Chinglish does not accord with English rules and idiomatic expressions，which made native speakers can not accept it. Often you will see slogan or signpost which was written by Chinglish in public places of China, it affects the translation quality and the international status of our country. This article considering problems existing in Chinglish and carries on the analysis to the manifestation, expound the causes of the formation of Chinglish and it’s influence, and put forward the improvement measures, so as to change the disadvantages of Chinglish in Chinese-English translation.#p#分頁標題#e#
Key Word: Chinglish; Manifestation; Causes; Improvement measures.
Ⅰ.Introduction
Our mother tongue is Chinese, Unlike American, one of the English varieties; Chinese has been used by Chinese people for about five thousand years. It has formed its own structural and grammatical system and influenced its users by Chinese way of thinking deeply. With the development of world economy’s globalization and integration, English should be the second language for us to learn and we see millions of Chinese start to learn English since in middle school. Now, primary school students have English classes too. However, our deep rooted way of thinking is a stubborn block in the way of learning a foreign language, which is extremely true in learning English, whose cultural background greatly differs from Chinese. As a result, a kind of English with Chinese thinking patters and English forms comes into being.
Chinglish is a kind of abnormal English, which is influenced by the mode of Chinese thinking or culture, and does not obey the English expression habit. This kind of English appears in the course of studying English of Chinese, though temporarily, but it is a kind of inevitable language phenomenon. Though this kind of English does not coincidence with idiomatic English, it can still be accepted in communication. But sometimes this kind of English will make the other side puzzled; people who speak Chinglish will offend the other side or make a stupid mistake, and breakdown communication. This paper will mainly discuss the manifestation and cause of Chinglish, and will give some effective solutions to help English learners overcome the difficulty in learning English..
Ⅱ. A Brief Review of Chinglish
Our mother tongue is Chinese, Unlike American, one of the English varieties; Chinese has been used by Chinese people for about five thousand years. It has formed its own structural and grammatical system and influenced its users by Chinese way of thinking deeply. With the development of world economy’s globalization and integration, English should be the second language for us to learn and we see millions of Chinese start to learn English since in middle school. Now, primary school students have English classes too. However, our deep rooted way of thinking is a stubborn block in the way of learning a foreign language, which is extremely true in learning English, whose cultural background greatly differs from Chinese. As a result, a kind of English with Chinese thinking patters and English forms comes into being.
2.1 Definition
Chinglish is usually produced by Chinese people in Chinese-English translation and also called “Chinese English”. It is a combination of “Chinese” and “English” , it is produced by Chinese learners who draw upon Chinese rules and structures mechanically as a result of mother tongue interference.#p#分頁標題#e#
Chinglish is speech or writing that shows the interference of the influence of Chinese. Some sentences may be little or more than word for word translation of Chinese expression. In The Translator’s Guide to Chinglish, Joan Pinkhan points out that to one degree or another, the work of all but the most highly trained and experienced among them will inevitably contain elements of Chinglish. “Chinglish, of course , is that misshapen, hybrid language that is neither English nor Chinese but that might be described as English with Chinese characteristics.” [2] Chinese learners of Chinese learners of English do not fully master English and use English words to express themselves in light of Chinese grammar, sentence pattern, or culture.
2.2 History
In 1840, China’s door was forced to open by foreign guns. In Hong Kong, peoples who often make contact with foreigners learn several English vocabularies, and made up the words by Chinese way of thinking. “Long time no see” is the most famous Chinglish at that time.
Then England had spread their concession in Shanghai, Chinglish also spring up around the concession and this kind of English is Pidgin. It’s often used by people who do not know each other’s language, there are many well known examples such as “san q”, it is mean “thank you”.
In modern society, the application of English becoming widely, especially during the time of Beijing to host the Olympic Games, Chinglish is also appears on everywhere. We can see “Welcome again”, but it should be expressed to “please come again”.
2.3 Feature of Chinglish
One of features of Chinglish is that no one can understand what you have said. If
we listen to Chinese student speaking English or observe their attempt to write English, we would soon notice that errors of pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are likely to occur. A relatively large percentage of errors are directly related to learner’s mother tongue.
The most difficult thing in translation is the translation of words. Often, a translator has to rack his or her brain for days in order to render a word adequately.
Unnecessary words are the hallmark of Chinglish. Almost every text that has been translated into English from Chinese, or that has been written directly in English by a native speaker of Chinese, contains unnecessary words. Draft translations are commonly full of them, and even polished versions are seldom free of them. Chinese and English are so vastly different that it is not always easy to use English collocation properly. There are some typical wrong collocations, for example, making achievements (attaining achievements). It is wrong collocation, which results in Chinglish. Committing mistakes (making mistakes) is another one. And we don’t learn knowledge, we learn English, but we don’t learn knowledge, we acquire language.#p#分頁標題#e#
Pronouns are not always so easy to handle. For native Chinese speakers, the difficuties with English pronouns are compounded by the difference between the two languages. As you know, pronouns are used in many places in English where they are not required in Chinese. Most pronouns in English have more forms to choose from than do the corresponding pronouns in Chinese. Every pronoun must have a clear, logical antecedent. And that antecedent must be a stated word that readers can immediately recognize as the one to which the pronoun refers. Otherwise, they will be either confused or misled.
Another feature of Chinlish is improper syntax using. The syntax of Chinglish is imprecise, and inconsequential in a parallel structure. For example, Timber is needed for construction and to withstand floods. In this sentence, the prepositional phrase and the infinitive can not be a parallel structure. It should be: Timber is needed to provide materials for construction and to help withstand floods, Besides, personal pronouns, also frequently confused Chinese students in English syntax. Because of it refers to gender and plural, especially in a compound sentence.
Ⅲ. Manifestation of Chinglish
3.1 Difference in Modes of Thinking
Thinking depends on language, and dominates languages as well. Owning to the difference in cultural background and geographical environment, modes of thinking vary. There are big differences. Essentially speaking, translation is the translation of different thinking modes [3]. And the Chinese thinking mode made the word order of sentence different from English.
(1) F: I think I can’t.
T: I don’t think I can.
(2)
3.2 Different Collocation
Vocabulary is the most active and flexible component in one language, which reflects culture directly. A nation’s physical environment, social structure and spiritual belief will be manifested from its vocabulary. The word collocation that is right in Chinese may not be used in English. In English some phrases have fixed collocations, you can not change the word as your please. For example, “紅茶”, many Chinese students will translate it into “red tea”, but in fact it should be“black tea”. Another typical example is “菜鳥”，in English the authentic expression is “green hand”, not the “new hand”. Sometimes we know the right word but we use it in the wrong way. For instance, when we translate “親密的朋友”， some may choose the word “close”, though the word means not far and intimate, it just use in objective scene, such as distance, time and room. At this moment, we should use “closely”, which means you are familiar with the other one.
It seems that the above-mentioned kinds of Chinglish are mainly caused by the students’ assumption of a one-to-one correspondence. However, this belief is, to a large extent, encouraged by the way of teaching words. In English classroom, new words are mainly taught in isolation through the bilingual wordlists in the textbook, and the usage of a word is presented by way of doing much translation work. Gradually learners may take it for granted that every word in English has a one-to-one equivalent in Chinese and get into the habit of using their mother tongue as a framework on which to attach English lexical items. As a result, learners will not development in writing and thinking in English.#p#分頁標題#e#
3.3 Repetition in Chinglish
One of the typical principles in English writing is concise. Under the influence of Chinese, many Chinese students always add some words unnecessary when translating, which lead to low correctness of the sentence.
(1) F: The train began to accelerate its speed.
T: The train began to accelerate.
(2) F: Mary likes reading books.
T: Mary likes reading.
In the two examples, the word “accelerate” includes the meaning “accelerate the speed”, the word “read” also contains the meaning “read books”. There is no need to add some words unnecessary to the original sentences.
The other one is that in Chinese there are some phrases and idioms with same meaning, but in English too much repetition cannot be accepted.
Repetition of language is a feature in Chinese, which will make the sentence and what you want to express more clear and cautious. But in English, repletion means wordiness, westerners pursue terseness.
Ⅳ. The Causes of Chinglish
Chinglish is a mixture of two different languages, based on two dissimilar societies, where people think diversely and have widely different history to race to. The openness of Chinese society, the education system and the language environment in China also contribute to the emergency of Chinglish. It is easy to see that Chinglish comes into being with various reasons. Talk all factors into consideration, this paper analyze the courses from differences between western and eastern culture, transfer of mother tongue, and the creation of Chinglish for amusement.
4.1 Differences between Western and Eastern Cultures
The difference between Western and Eastern lie in many aspects, such as geographical position, production style, custom, religion, history and sense of worth. As an island country belongs to marine climate, Britain’s summer is gentle and mild; while China’s summer is blistering hot. Surround by ocean, British people fish for food and their language is related more to fishing than agriculture. Such phrases like “like a fish out of water”, “a poor fish” and “in the same boat” well reflected the influence of the production style to language. Age, salary, marriage, religion and family matters are considered as private matters for western people. They are always unacceptable for them, though Chinese people seldom care about it. So Chinese often irritate Westerners when they start conversions about age, marriage etc. But the British always start conversions about weather.
Religions not only influence people’s thought, but also get involved in the language forms. It is not rare to hear that “Oh my God!” and “Oh Jesus!”#p#分頁標題#e#
Language and culture are inextricably connected with each other. It is the shell of thoughts, is the carrier of culture and is an important part of culture. The influences of the culture on language are so obvious that many languages can not be well understood without good command of its culture background, including English. That’s why Chinglish comes into being. Let’s take an example, in Chinese, we use word of pig to imply something stupid, but in English the word should be “donkey”.
These differences of the two cultures make English hard for Chinese students and the deep-rooted Chinese culture is the basic reason for the formation of Chinglish.
4.2 Transfer of Mother Tongue
When learning a foreign language, an individual already knows his mother tongue. Transfer is “a term used by psychologists in their account of the way in which present learning is affected by past learning” Odlin has suggested that transfer is the influence resulting from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously acquired. In second language learning , this phenomenon is a very general psychological process that of relying on prior knowledge to facilitate new learning. For the first place, before learning a foreign language, the experience of the learner is acquired and preserved through his native language, so these experience will be used for the foreign language learning. For the second, the native language serves as a tool for the foreign language learning and the knowledge and skill of the native language will be transferred to the foreign language unconsciously. Since there are equivalents, similarities and differences between the native and the foreign language in linguistic structure, social culture and logic thought, the forms of transfer during the process of learning are different, including positive and negative transfer.
Chinese and English have the same reply forms to negative interrogation, but the two replies express different meanings. In this case, the Chinese student tends to use the mode of expression of this mother tongue instead of English, thus, the negative transfer happens. The English learner should get rid of Chinese ways of thinking and try to combine the form with the meaning and mode of expression in English. One task of teaching is to prevent such kind of interference of mother tongue. Marry experiments have proved that negative transfer is in general temporary, and can be prevented by training and learning.
We get “positive transfer” or “facilitation” when some characteristics of mother tongue are similar to or equivalent to the target language. It benefits the foreign language learning. For instance, the basic word order of Chinese and English is the same: Sentence=Subject+Verb+Object. In this case, Chinese student can construct a correct sentence by the version of Chinese word order#p#分頁標題#e#
Generally speaking, transfer is glossary of psychology. It is first defined by behaviorist psychologists to refer to the process of automatic, uncontrolled and subconscious use of past learned behavior in the attempt to produce new responses. According to them, the main impediment to learning was interference from the prior knowledge. Proactive inhibition occurred when old habits got in the way of attempts to learn new ones. Psycholinguists use the term to refer to the influence imposed by a learner’s possessed linguistic knowledge and skill upon the subsequent learning of new linguistic knowledge or skill. And the language transfer refers to the phenomenon that the learner handle the rules of the mother tongue to deal with the target language consciously or not because they are not familiar with the expression rules of target language in the Second Language Acquisition. It usually presents to the primary stage of the Second Language Acquisition. The theory of the Second Language Acquisition figures that language transfer can be divided into positive transfer and negative transfer because of the similarities and differences between the Learners’ mother tongue and the target language.
4.3 The Creation of Chinglish for Amusement
According to Baidu encyclopedia, “long time no see” occurred in the early 1990s, when British and American warships and merchant ships moored in Chinese dock. The conversation mixed with Chinglish began. When the mariners came back home and spoke Chinglish to amuse their families, Chinglish happened to be widely used. More Chinglish was invented by Chinese geniuses, such as the famous pietic description of the accident scene: one car comes, one car goes, two car pengpeng, the people die. Seeing this, everyone cannot help laughing, no matter he is a Chinese or not. There are several examples of Chinglish as follows:
(1) How old are you? (You again!)
(2) You give me stop! (Stop right there!&Stop where you are!)
(3) Good good study, day day up! (Study well and make progress every day.)
(4) Five flowers eight doors. (Rich in variety; all kinds of)
(5) Want money no have, want life have one. (I have nothing but my own life.)
Ⅴ. Suggestions to Handling Chinglish
Chinglish is the misshapen and hybrid English and cannot be understood or accepted by English native speakers, so it seriously affect the Chinese-English translation and the communication between Chinese and western people. It is time we found possible solutions to it.
5.1 Create an Environment for Language Learning
Environment is important in learning language. Learners at home usually have little time to listen to listen to or speak English. So the if the learners want to solve the problem, the best way is to creat a language environment in learning English. As we know the only time for the students to contact English is the time in their English class. So the classroom management is very important. The efficiency of a class will decide the student’s English level someway or other. Many people think the best way to learn English is to speak English as often as one can. But we don’t have such English environment; listen to English radios every day is very useful to improve their listening ability. And sometimes watching American films can also reaching good results.#p#分頁標題#e#
5.2 Doing More Translation Exercise
To avoid Chinglish in C-E translation, it is not enough to have understood the thought pattern of English, owned a large vocabulary and accumulated various Chinglish examples. We should do more translation practice as well. Only through practice can we make mistakes, correct them, and not make the same mistakes next time. In this way, we can reduce Chinglish gradually.
First, we should understand the surface and deep structure of the original. Correct understanding is the prerequisite of not only translation but also avoiding Chinglish in translation [4]. It is important comprehend the original together with its context and thought patterns.
Second, we must translate with English thought pattern in accordance with English rules and habits. Not all the phrases or sentences can be translated literally. Change the word order or use other expressions when necessary. The key to avoiding the use of Chinglish is to get rid of the interference of mother tongue and use the thought and language pattern of the target language.
Third, we should seriously proof our translations. Generally speaking, there are three steps: (1) Proof the translation according to the original, ensuring that all the meanings are expressed; (2) Ensure that there is no mistranslation, including words, phrases and logical relation; (3) Check it to see whether there is Chinglish.
Ⅵ. The Influence of Chinglish
Chinglish “long time no see” has became a standard phrase now, from 1994, among the words added to international English vocabulary, Chinglish had reached 5% to 20%, more than any other language. There even a group “Help the Chinglish” on the well-known social networking sites Facebook, it include more than 2,500 Chinglish examples [5].
Ⅶ. Conclusion
What happens to English in China is on a par with what happens to Chinese when foreigners attempt to learn Chinese. It is uncertain which is harder. We have to still bear in mind, that only those who born native can speak real native language.
To sum up, Chinglish refers to the misuse of normative English. Chinglish learns of English do not fully master English and use English words to express themselves in light of Chinese grammar, sentence pattern or culture. As an interlanguage and with its own features, Chinglish is unavoidable for Chinese learners of English and it is objective and systematic. Although Chinglish is unavoidable in Chinese-English translation, the competent translators can reduce or avoid it.
Reference
[1] Nida, E.A.Translating Meaning [M].San Dimas: English Language Institute, 1982.
[2] The Translator’s Guide to Chinglish, Joan Pinkhan
[3] Difference between English and Chinese Ways of Thinking and the Main Language Expression#p#分頁標題#e#
; Journal of Hubei College of Finance and Economics; 2008-03
[4] 葉小寶，從漢英思維差異透視翻譯癥。 淮北煤炭師范學院學報 2006(2)
[5] 百度百科http://baike.baidu.com/view/300085.htm#1
