An Analysis Of English Loanwords In Mandarin Chinese

Language is a social phenomenon and an important means of communication. Vocabulary is the most active and sensitive among the three elements of a language, which reflects political, economic, and social changes in a nation. These changes set off the production of new words, loanwords in particular, which grab the attention of linguists across the globe. In the recent 20 years, western countries have made great achievements in the economic and scientific fields, which promotes the popularity of English worldwide. In the communication with the western countries, China inevitably borrows a magnitude of English words by which the modern Mandarin Chinese is featured. Therefore, many translators, linguists, lexicologists worked on the study of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese which usually focuses on the current status of English loanwords, the causes of the borrowing, their etymology, features, functions, and translation methods. However, this thesis mainly centers on the linguistic analysis of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese, which is kind of innovative.This thesis is based on Thomason and Kaufman's model of contact-induced language change. In this model, the intensity of contact serves as a scale to predict which types of borrowed elements can be expected to appear in increasing contact situations. In this model, there are five types of contact along a line of contact from "least intense" to "most intense". They are casual contact, slightly more intense contact, more intense contact, strong culture pressure, very strong cultural pressure. Correspondingly, there are five categories of linguistic borrowing which are the natural outcomes of language contact and which include lexical borrowing only, slight structural borrowing, slightly more structural borrowing, moderate structural borrowing, and heavy structural borrowing. It is unfortunate that the majority of these studies in Thomason and Kaufman's framework use Indo-European and/or African languages as data-sources in supporting their analysis and claim, neglecting many other languages including Chinese. And it is also true that most of the SL and RL are structurally akin to each other, or they exist in a bilingual speech community. The two scholars postulated that this framework is more applicable to two typologically different languages than two typologically similar languages. Therefore, it will be instructive to outline Thomason and Kaufman's model of contact-induced language change in this paper in order to evaluate the English-Chinese case.In this thesis, the first chapter mainly deals with the significance of the study and methodology. The second chapter of literature review expounds on the theoretical foundation of the thesis, definition of loanwords, previous research of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese, and classification of English loanwords. The third chapter focuses on the linguistic analysis of adaptations of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese, which include the phonological adaptations, semantic changes, and morphological changes that English loanwords undergo when they are borrowed into Mandarin Chinese. The fourth chapter discusses the influences of English loanwords on Mandarin Chinese from lexical, semantic, morphological and syntactic perspectives. The fifth chapter analyzes the development of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese which includes its integration, evolution and new tendencies.There are some findings in this study. Firstly, English loanwords play a very important role in promoting the development of Mandarin Chinese. Chinese lexicon is chiefly expanded by the enormous flow of English loanwords, and the borrowing of English words has brought with it a set of distinctive morphological types in the form of root words, bound roots and affixes, thus greatly enriching Chinese vocabulary. Besides, a number of syntactic transferences also take place in Chinese due to the affection of English loanwords. Therefore, Mandarin Chinese is greatly affected by English loanwords in the lexico-semantic, morphological and syntactic fields. Secondly, given the rising status and prominent role of English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese, we should have a good command of them, which will benefits teachers of English and English learners.