Abuse of LanguageAbuse of Language

Chinglish Chinglish

By Jasmine, Phoebe, Linda,

ContentsContents

Introduction and examples 1

Features of Chinglish 2

Main Causes of Chinglish 3

How to Avoid Chinglish 4

1. Chinglish and China English?1. Chinglish and China English?

★中国式英语中国式英语 ★中国式英语分为两种。一种是 Chinese

English ，一种是 China English 。其中Chinese English 就是 Chinglish ，是用中式的语法和英式的词汇组合成的，属于语言不规范使用。

★而 China English 指的则是中国特有的东西，是允许存在的。比如“饺子、功夫、气功、阴阳”等词都用音译文进入英文词典。

Carefully Slip

Mixing room

Ironing room

Civilization tour followed by line

Digital printing

Powerful

Long live the friendship

Construction in progress

2. Features of Chinglish2. Features of Chinglish

• 1. Unnecessary Words• 他的名字叫约翰。 • A: His name is called John.

B: His name is John

• 加快经济改革的步伐• A: to accelerate the pace of

economic reform • B: to accelerate economic reform

2. Saying the same thing twice:

暂时性 temporary in nature新发明 new innovation.互相合作 mutual cooperation

3. Unnecessary Category Words促进和平统一事业A: promoting the cause of peaceful

reunificationB: promoting peaceful reunification

中国经济现在还处在落后状态。 A: China’s economy is still in a state

of backwardness.B: China’s economy is still backward.

4. Wrong Collocation

来信写道： the letter writes

the letter reads

把中国建设成 : build China into

turn China into

接受九年义务教育： accept 9-year compulsory education

receive a 9-year compulsory schooling

5. Syntactic(句法的 ) Error• 请再给我两小时。• Please allow me more two hours.• Please give me another two hours.• 和他结婚以后，她的麻烦就开始了。• After marrying him, her trouble • began. • After marrying him, she began to

have troubles.

6. Ambiguous Reference

• A: The doctor handed the child to the father with a smile on his face.(ambiguous)

• B: With a smile on his face, the doctor handed the child to the father.( clear)

7. Improper Word Order • A: It’s estimated that our army will

reach 5,500,000 at its peak next year.

• B: It’s estimated that at its peak next year our army will reach 5,500,000.

8. Personification• 我们的事业从胜利走向胜利 .• Our cause has won victories one after

another.(Chinglish) • We have won one victory after another

for our cause.• 宗教不得干预政治 .• Religion must not interfere with

politics.(Chinglish) • It’s impermissible to interfere with

politics in the name of religion.

9.9. Word for wordWord for word

国际关系民主化。 International relations should be

democratized.

Democracy should be practiced in

international relations.

你的手表不对。 Your watch is not correct.

Your watch doesn’t keep good time.

End

3. Main causes of Chinglish

• A. Cultural difference• 自由恋爱• free love • free choice of marriage partner• Free love: sexual activity with

several partners which does not involve loyalty to any particular person

B. Different thought pattern• 中国队战胜了美国队• 中国队战败了美国队 . • The Chinese Team won the American Teem. • The Chinese team beat the American Team.• ( It seems nothing different in meaning

between these two sentences in Chinese, although they use two opposite verbs. English speaking people are really surprised at these two sentences .)

• C. Different habitual usage•西北— northeast 迟早 --- sooner

or later 左右 --- right and left• 水火 --- fire and water 得失 ---loss

and gain •下层社会 ---lower classes •您先请 ---after you •不长不短 ---neither shorter nor

longer

D. Syntactic differenceA: Tom looked at me and felt

surprised.( Chinglish) B: Tom looked at me in surprise.A: Susan ran out when it was raining

hard. (Chinglish)B: Susan ran out into a heavy rain.Prep.+noun is often used in English.

E. Misunderstanding of the Chinese original

中国经济是一个大问题China’s economy is a big problem. China’s economy is an important

question.

4. How to Avoid Chinglish?4. How to Avoid Chinglish?

A. Guarding against Taking the Words at their Face Level

人文奥运 *people’s ( cultural) Olympics; culture-enriched Olympics科技旅游 *technological tours; science-theme tourist

B. Keeping a good dictionary at hand酸奶 sour milk (The milk must have gone bad); yoghurt宣传部 *propaganda department; department in charge of publicityPropaganda is a derogatory English word implying “false or partly false information used by agovernment or political party to make people agree with them”.

C. Developing Pragmatic( 实际的 )

Competence

★Translators’ pragmatic ability is part of

their communicative competence. It

comprises the ability to use language

appropriately according to the context.

More often than not, making a pragmatic

error in a Chinglish sentence is far more

serious than a linguistic one.

客人抵达后，外国主人会问： Would you like to make yourself

comfortable?

凭票入场： Admission is by ticket only.

我最近常常想到你和贵国。 You and your country have been in

my thoughts recently.

End

Thank You!Thank You!