A Comparative Study On China English And Chinglish Research Contents And Methods

Chinese people have used English for about 180 years from 19th century. Due to the essential discrepancy of Chinese and western culture and the negative transfer in language acquisition, Chinglish emerges with the rote of grammar and words. It distinguished from China English, which express things with Chinese characteristic in Chinese culture. Chinglish is a kind of abnormal language phenomenon with negative effect while China English is an English variety which bears positive effect in the communication between Chinese and westerns. China English and Chinglish are closely related to various disciplinaries and their research is in progress. However further studies are still in great need. The present study attempts to figure out China English and Chinglish research trend from two aspects, namely research contents and research methods through lucubrating domestic literature.The data source of present study is based on domestic journals. Since there is no special journal on Chinglish and China English in China, articles on Chinglish and China English from various journals between 1996 to 2006 with a total number of 202 were collected. The journals range from Foreign Language Teaching and Research(《外语教学与研究》),Chinese Translators Journal(《中国翻译》) to journals of domestic universities. 106 articles are in the field of Chinglish, 85 in the field of China English and 11 discuss both. Each article is analyzed in two dimensions: the research contents and research methods. The articles will be categorized based on the research content and compare the similarity and difference within. As for research methods, each article is first analyzed according to the category of empirical or non-empirical research; then the empirical articles are reanalyzed based on the category of qualitative, quantitative or the mixture of the two.The result indicate that there are many similarities in the research areas of China English and Chinglish. For example, in the areas of Cross-culture, foreign language teaching and translation, they can learn from each other for reference. Some articles bring thought-provoking elicitations for the research, such as the translation of ancient Chinese poetry with China English or learn China English via internet etc. Certainly China English and Chinglish own their own research field. The research of Chinglish starts to deal with the incorporate of Chinglish in the written and oral English of university students while the research of China English still sticks to the argument over some basic concepts. As far as research method is concerned, most studies of China English and Chinglish rest on non-empirical studies and the empirical studies are mostly qualitative research.Summarizing the analysis and comparisons of China English and Chinglish research, it is concluded that: the study of China English and Chinglish have been on the right track and call enough attention, however the rate of process is not fast, many research are simple repeating or processing of previous studies, more new thoughts are encouraged. The research field can be further extended, and the practical exertion of theory needs to be improved. On the other hand, introducing culture teaching into language acquisition is a problem that not neglectable. Methodologically, the empirical research methods must be reinforced in order to generate more reliable research. Meanwhile, in order to achieve higher research validity and reliability, the mixed use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods should be employed instead of adopting just one of the two.