The Status and Trends of China English

Abstract

The status and trends of China English, as documented and analyzed in Bolton and Graddol (2011), are recurring topics of intense research interest in many linguistic studies, especially for some bilingual collaborative scholars from both western countries and China. The current paper attempts to describe the status of China English and analyze its trends based on relevant corpus data. The exuberance and vibrancy of China English are reflected in nativized English from Chinese, Chinese loanwords in English, and the pragmatics and functional use of China English. The corpus data analyses strongly support the practice of employing various calques in treating China-specific or culture-bound words, such as phonological calque, semantic calque, phono-semantic calque, and referential calque.