An Exploratory Study On Chinglish: A Contextual Approach

This study sets out to investigate the underlying mechanism of Chinglish within the framework of the Compensation Hypothesis (Wang, 2003). Based on the hypothesis, lack of authentic L2 context compatible with L2 use is likely to incur a mismatch of L2 form with L1 contextual knowledge, thus giving rise to L1 transfer. That is, L1 contextual knowledge mediates transfer from L1 to L2. This conceptualization of transfer differs from traditional notion of language transfer in that L1 transfer is due more to contextual knowledge than ignorance of L2 forms. Accordingly, Chinglish, English expressions with Chinese characteristics, can be attributed to the function of L1 Chinese contextual knowledge. Different from previous research, the Compensation Hypothesis not only approaches Chinglish from a contextual perspective, but also takes into account of the internal factors of L2 learners----internal context. This study verifies the Compensation Hypothesis with a view to finding out how Chinglish comes about and whether mismatch exists between Chinglish forms and the requisite contextual knowledge.For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted. Subjects of the study were nine Chinese third-year English majors at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. They were required to participate in a writing task, followed by think-aloud and interviews. Focus was on how the subjects identified and corrected Chinglish expressions in their writings. The task involves a story based on a set of pictures selected from the cartoon book Father and Son. The subjects were asked to write a composition at regular class by relating the pictures to their life experience. No reference books or dictionaries were allowed for the writing. After their compositions were completed, a native speaker of English was invited to underline errors in the compositions. Then the errors with Chinese characteristics were sifted out on the basis of the interlanguage & mother tongue...