The Characteristics Of "China English" From Perspective Of English Globalization

The globalization of English inevitably accompanies its extensive nativization in various social and cultural contexts. As a result, non-native English varieties developed worldwide, one of which is "China English". China English, in its broad sense, is based on the standard variety of English, expresses Chinese culture, and has Chinese characteristics. In spite of different opinions on China English, most of the scholars have recognized its existence and supplemented its linguistic characteristics in phonology, lexis, sentence and discourse. However, few of them focus on the description and corpus-based analysis of China English based on English novels written by Chinese writers.The thesis, therefore, aims to explore the nativized lexis and some of the grammatical characteristics of China English by examining two novels of a well-known Chinese American writer Ha Jin, in which the writer's use of English is nativized to the Chinese context so as to recast the cultural meanings of the language. The thesis suggests that the Chinese characteristics of China English are most obvious in certain words and expressions, such as names of objects and places, address terms, curse terms, proverbs and idioms and politicalized terms. When Ha Jin refers to things typically Chinese, he naturally chooses to use certain expressions that may not have existed in other varieties of English. In the novels, the nativization of lexical terms and phrases is not merely dull translation of Chinese, but achieves a dramatic and arresting literary effect. In addition, the thesis finds that in Ha Jin's novels, there is high frequency of pre-posed temporal adverbial clauses and relatively lower frequency of pre-posed causal adverbial clauses, with the former accords with the previous studies while the latter just the opposite. The result indicates that, on one hand, Ha Jin deliberately follows the Chinese way of thinking to create a sense of Chineseness in his novels; on the other hand, he doesn't go too far away from the Western readers' logic thinking pattern, which reminds us that we should also pay special attention to the correctness and appropriateness of the terms or structures we use in English to express Chineseness so that effective intercultural communication can be achieved. In writing the thesis, the author hopes to raise the awareness of both L2 learners, especially advanced ones, and their teachers of English varieties and the characteristics of China English, which will be of great help when they need to express things uniquely Chinese in English in intercultural communication.