Researching English as an Indigenised Variety in China

1. Researching English as an Indigenised Variety in China Dr Huizhong Shen Faculty of Education & Social Work The University of Sydney h.shen@edfac.usyd.edu.au The 5th International Conference on ELT in Chinaand the 1st Congress of Chinese Applied Linguistics Beijing – May 16-21, 2007

2. Presentation Overview • Introduction • Research stances • New research paradigms • Some empirical evidence • Need for further research • Conclusion

3. Introduction: stats & models • 250 million • 10 million for entrance examinations • 5 million annual university intake • Contrasting models British Hills (study abroad) Wall Street English New Oriental English

4. British Hills British Hills

5. Wall Street Institute

6. New Oriental College

7. Introduction: issues • English or Englishes? • Which English? • Whose English? • Chinese English/China English? • A self-inflicted view • A conceptual/methodological trap

8. Research stances • A self-inflicted inferiority complex • A submissive language L/R model • Pursuit of a NE variety as benchmark • A detrimental focus on ‘Learner English’ • Chinese English high jacked • Problemtizing Chinese English research

9. Examples of atypical“Chinese English” “Chinese speakers pronounce ‘very well’ as ‘vely wen’ and Peter Mundy as ‘Pe-tang Mun-ty’.” (Temple, 1919, in Bolton 2002) “Good good study, day day up.” “People mountain people sea.” (Wei & Fei, 2003) “Mary yesterday bought a dictionary.” “For me to get up before 6 o’clock in the morning is impossible.” “It is a hard job but someone must do it.” (Jia, 1990)

10. New research paradigms • Beyond pidgin English or Chinglish • Moving away from learner English • Focus on user English in research • Free from the inferiority complex shackle • Follow the code-referenced principle

11. An old attitude "Not the full translation, just the gist of what they're saying." Punch, 17 March 1982

12. A thousand languages, all of them English Photo Illustration: by Andy JoynerPhoto: Andrew Joyner

13. UK’s standard English debate: 1 • The Newbolt Report (1925): The teaching of English should centre on the teaching of English literature. • The Bullock Report (1975): The teaching of English should focus on the development of speech.

14. UK’s standard English debate:2 • The Newbolt Report (1925): Non-standard English are the “evil habits of the home and street”. • The Bullock Report (1975): “We believe that a child’s accent should be accepted, and that to attempt to suppress it is irrational and neither humane or necessary…”

15. Hasan & Lushington (1968) argue: “…one of the main aims of teaching English is, surely, to enable the pupil to use, both in spoken and written form, the language of the speech community of his day…the models which are presented to him should be those in which the language used is that of contemporary speakers and writers. Within this the model ought to take into account the varieties of language. For reasons determined externally we may choose to teach the standard English to the exclusion of others, but this does not imply that other varieties are in some way internally inferior or wrong.”

16. Some empirical evidence (1): Indigenized Chinese English “I am not deep and not well-read. If one is too well-read, then one does not know right is right and wrong is wrong… For in a very real sense, these spirits have been with me, in the only form of spiritual communion that I recognized as real-when two men separated by the ages think the same thoughts and sense the same feelings and each perfectly understands the other.” (Lin, 1935)

17. Some empirical evidence (2): Indigenized Chinese English “Culture traffics in ideas. It has no national boundaries, it enriches itself just as much by what it gives as what it takes…Culture has always maintained an Open Door Policy. There is only one condition for entry – the humility to learn.” (Sun, 1935 in Bolton, 2002)

18. Some empirical evidence (3): Indigenized Chinese English “The East has come to learn more and more from the West and adore it; the West has come to understand and appreciate the East to a degree never before known…To be born yellow and to be educated white is a privilege…And what a treasure it is to be able to feel like a Chinese and to think like a Westerner! And what an ideal, to be as tender-hearted as a woman, and at the same time as tough-minded as a man!” (Wu, 1937 in Bolton, 2002)

19. Some empirical evidence (4): Indigenized Chinese English “I started to write the poem in English first, but shifted halfway to Chinese and finished...But the two languages must have tangled deeper in my mind…Only when I really worked on the poem in English did I discover the unconscious echoes to Li Po’ lines ‘Sailing through wails of monkeys from both banks, a light boat has passed thousands of mountains’ in my first line….” (Leung, 2000)

20. Some empirical evidence (4): Indigenized Chinese English “Feel the fear and do it anyway! Storms make trees take deeper roots! Make money internationally!” (Li Yang, in Bolton, 2002) “The front gatekeeper, a gray-haired, red armbanded woman surnamed Zhu, yawned and nodded to Chen on that April morning as he tossed a green plastic token into the token box.” (From A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong)

21. Need for further research • There is compelling evidence suggesting that Chinese English as an indigenized variety is in the making, • but a systematic approach is needed for collecting, codifying and theorizing empirical data, • There is a need to have three bases: (1) the empirical base, (2) the pedagogical base, and (3) the theoretical base.

22. Conclusion • Chinese English researchers should be free from the demoralizing self-inflicted view • Chinese English research should be informed by current developments in WE/EIL/ELF • User English should be the focus of research • Chinese English research should move beyond the linguistic dimension to focus on bilingual interaction/creativity at the perceptual level

23. Thank you