ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 39 (Number 38) Year 2018. Page 23

The Relations between Chinese and English in the Era of Globalization

Las relaciones entre los idiomas chino e inglés en la era de la globalización

Elena S. IAKOVLEVA 1; Li BING 2; Zhao PENGBO 3; Niu YUFENG 4

Received: 20/04/2018 • Approved: 05/06/2018

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Results and discussions

4. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

The era of integration of linguistic and cultural space as a consequence of the development of trade, economic, political and social factors affecting linguistic evolution, is the trigger for the gradual elimination of lingua cultural boundaries. In the modern world, when the principle of saving money, time and effort comes to the fore, the real communication and pastime are replaced by virtual. Chinese young people, who are sufficiently fluent in English, constantly communicate with their peers around the world, separating their own youth subculture from the traditional Chinese culture by verbal means (Alvaro 2015, Bolton and Botha 2015). Nor can China's adult population resist a massive infusion of English-speaking nominations, as China, as one of the world's most powerful powers, seeks to assimilate into the flow of global integration in all spheres of society (Li and Ligang 2006, Bolton and Botha 2015). The flow of such words, expressions and even whole sentences in Chinese is so massive and uncontrolled that the prospects of studying the ways of adding to the vocabulary of the Chinese language and, consequently, its evolution, determine the interest of linguists and sociolinguists for many years to come (Moore et al. 2010, Yo and Ye 2015).

The work is based on the theoretical basis formed by the results of systematization of the provisions taken from the works of many: J. Baghana, V. A. Vinogradov, N. N. Voropaev, L. V. Shcherba, Wang Li (王力 Wang Li), U. Weinreich, Gao Minky (罗常培 Luo Changpei), E. Haugen, Liu Jintang and many others (Li 2015, Rai and Deng 2016).

2. Methods

This article is based on the systemic approach to the interdisciplinary analysis. Due to the cognitive cross-disciplinary approach we take into consideration the anthropocentric factor, linguistic and non-linguistic information, especially dealing with the problem of mentality and language correlation.

3. Results and discussions

In the crucial era of the late 1990s, the notion of globalization appeared and became the integral part of the society. It has become part of the scientific community of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and later linguists and specialists in other fields of knowledge. And the convenience of this concept lies in the fact that it contains a whole paradigm of epoch-making metamorphoses and world changes, when it comes to a set of diverse processes that allow the whole world to pull together a single framework and characteristics to make transparent and conditional all the historical and territorial boundaries of the current stage of human development (Rai and Deng 2016).

Scientists believe such irreversible global changes are characterized by a whole system of specific factors of globalization, which, first of all, include:

- the emergence of modern electronic devices that provide easy communication and connection of people regardless of location anywhere in the world, as well as the general principles of the use of these devices around the world;

- the development of economic, political, sociological, environmental spheres of interaction between members of the world community, ensuring unhindered communication between countries through IT-technologies and personal contact through the development of transport infrastructure;

- formation and popularization of global ideologies aimed at preservation of ecology, protection of human and animal rights;

- the rapid introduction of all countries of the world to the benefits of civilization through the media, the development of a common world ideology (Bolton et al. 2015).

Thus, whatever the consequences of globalization are, the modern world is rapidly following its course, creating a unified information, sociological, political and economic world space.

The main distinctive principles of the "cheers" of the globalization process accepted by the world community are:

- emergence of world trade networks and companies offering their services in different countries;

- popularization, growth and constant use of the global Internet web by people to ensure their life and existence in all spheres;

- the growth and development, constant increase in Metropolitan cities due to the inflow of foreign citizens;

- standardization of measures, creation of a common measurement system for all countries and world communities operating in contact;

- the emergence of a single certification for all countries and continents;

- creation of manipulative means to work with mass consciousness, including through a global virtual network and mass media;

- proclamation of General principles on rights, ecology, protection of endangered species, resource saving, etc.;

- the emergence of lingua Franca (Wang and Storey 2015).

English, more commonly referred to as "lingua Franca" or "the language of world/international communication", has recently penetrated into all linguistic and cultural traditions and languages of the world, affecting their development and territorial, economic, social and political options. Modern lingua Franca in the era of globalization, despite the fact that it is the second largest number of speakers after Chinese, for a long time and persistently holds the leading place of the most common in terms of the functional prevalence of language. Its priority position is due to the following factors:

- the power and advanced position of the countries whose inhabitants speak English;

- accomplishment of scientific and technical revolution taking into account English as the universal code language of broadcasting of the corresponding inventions;

- the existence of former English colonies in which English is recognized as the official world language;

- distribution of products manufactured by English-speaking countries, including not only technical, but also social, virtual and other types;

- spread in the mass consciousness of the world community of cultural values of Americans and British people (Wang and Storey 2015, Wei and Su 2015).

Having analyzed these factors, it is impossible not to mention the fact that the number of English-speaking citizens (including non-native speakers and users) is growing steadily. This, in turn, leads to the emergence of a large number of media texts in English. These media texts are broadcasted on the world news channel CNN, which is considered one of the most popular for the world audience. Like the BBC, this channel broadcasts around the world and, being considered authoritative, carries its own ideology into the world cultural masses, as well as a whole layer of new vocabulary is associated with the latest world events. This fact allows us to speak with full confidence about the process of integration and globalization of information broadcasting systems (linguistic and manipulative systems), which dictate speech norms and stereotypes of human behavior.

Describing English as a lingua Franca, David Crystal's book “English as a Global Language” took special role of the media, broadcasting in English. (Bolton et al. 2015).

The spread of English as a lingua Franca implies, first of all, the interlinguistic level of research of contact, comparative linguistics, language theory. At the same time, the mechanisms of influence of the donor language means on the recipient language and assimilation of these verbal means in the foreign language environment are taken into account in a special way. According to the types of borrowings, their stratification, style toning, register and functional taxonomy come to the fore.

It should be noted that the English language is more distinguished by the property of penetration into a foreign language environment and by the ways of the fastest assimilation and adaptation of its own borrowings in the European language space. However, we must not forget the fact that any Oriental language is not so pliable to all sorts of metamorphoses than European ones. And the explanation for this is not just the fact of conservatism of lingua culture, due to the desire to preserve the history and traditions of the Eastern people, but, above all, is the complexity of hieroglyphic writing and the specifics of writing, in comparison with speech.

Nevertheless, despite the many prohibitions imposed by the state and the caution of the population, in the era of globalization all attempts to preserve the absolute identity and immutability of Eastern languages have cracked. Thus, no matter how globalization is assessed as a fact occurring in the world culture, which takes place in modern society, it is an irreversible and immutable process, the development of world history, metamorphoses and the dynamics of society. The results of this process are obvious in all spheres of human life, including political, economic, social. They are erasing borders, the spread of mass ideology and the imposition of certain patterns of behavior. In this case, it is realistic to talk about the subsequent unification of not only the cultures of world civilization, but also the corresponding language canons.

Furthermore, we pay our attention to the detailed issues of interaction and mutual influence of the English and Chinese languages on the modern synchronous section of the development of the scientific and technical revolution.

So, according to the degree of occurrence in the modern world, the English language is the most common. The fact is the entire flow of information, especially posted on the Internet, is quite massively included in the global space and fills the niche of the language of lingua Franca. In addition, English has been a part of the official languages of the United Nations since a certain time.

At the same time, the Chinese language, which is not the most spoken language, but is superior in number to the people who speak it, also began to expand. It is included in the official languages of the UN, and it is expected that it may soon become necessary for learning to communicate in business and politics.

As you know, Chinese is quite difficult to let any innovations into their linguistic territory, but the law of globalization and China's desire to join the world community, takes a full place on the world stage as a trading partner. In addition, as Jay Walker noted, "if you are a Chinese student, you will start learning English in the third grade." This is justified by the fact every Chinese student at the end of his / her studies passes the exam "gaokao" (similar to the Russian exam), which includes three main subjects: Chinese, mathematics and a foreign language (usually English) (Bolton et al. 2015, Wang and Storey 2015, Wei and Su 2015).

Since English already is firmly in the Chinese linguistic culture, it definitely affects the Chinese. This impact is particularly evident in the Internet sphere.

For example, the English suffix -ing is taken to Express the duration of actions, -s to express the plural of the noun: 关注ing (guan zhu’ ing) – watch 期待ing (qi dai'ing) – waiting 兄弟s (xiong di’ s) brothers, etc.

In addition to the morphological component, the Chinese language tightly includes English equivalents, which are adapted to Chinese by means of Chinese characters, for example: EN (ku) – "cool" is used as the transliteration of the word cool – cool (Wang and Storey 2015, Wei and Su 2015). 

Among the most typical borrowings from the English language can be called such types of acronyms as WTO, MBA, SARS, the DVD that it is increasingly common in Chinese media (Wang and Storey 2015, Wei and Su 2015).

Often the Chinese language includes the so-called youth word, for example, ka fei (咖啡) – "coffee" sha fa（沙发) – sofa, sofa, mai ke feng (麦克风) – "microphone", yi mei er(伊妹儿) – "e-mail" yin te wang(因特网) – the "Internet" ha lou(哈喽) hi, etc.

The tendency to adapt the Chinese language to the receipt of borrowings is evident at the level of lexicographical sources. For example, in 1996 dictionaries there were approximately 39 words that started with Latin letters, including those that, in addition to Latin elements, contained hieroglyphs. Already in 2002, these units, there were already more than a hundred and most prevalent were the words, having in its composition only Latin letters, while having Latin characters plus the characters – only about twenty percent. In the publications of dictionaries of the last time such units were counted as already more than two hundred, which clearly reflects the growth in the number of foreign abbreviations (Zheng 2014, Liu and Zhao 2015).

Thus, knowing the hard Chinese policy towards linguistic innovations, that is, the presence of the law "On state common language", you can specify on the prohibition of the official use of English acronyms in the media, which should be replaced by Chinese: 美国职业篮球联赛mei guo zhi ye lan qiu lian sai ("NBA"), National Basketball Association美国mei guo ("American") 职业zhi ye ("professional") 篮球lan qiu ("basketball") 联赛 lian sai ("the League»), 中国中央电视台zhong guo zhong yang dian shi tai (CCTV) China Central Television 中国zhong guo (Chinese) yang 中央zhong ("Central" ) 电视台dian shi tai (TV ) (Wang and Storey 2015, Rai and Deng 2016). And since the Chinese abbreviation is more common, the view of the Chinese authorities is explained by the attempt to explain to the Chinese people the events taking place in the world more fully.

However, despite attempts by the Chinese official authorities to fight for the conservatism of the Chinese language, still there are plenty of names in English which are written on food products, commercials for companies working on franchise, etc linguistic research is justified because it is assumed that this kind of language infusion enrich the language, and enable the Chinese nation to join the world community the most complete and act as a serious business partner. Thus, it is believed that the Chinese language in this case is in step with the times (Kelley 2000, Moore et al. 2010, Leung and Yang 2013).

So, despite the limitations of the Chinese authorities, even at the legislative level, objective language laws in conditions of synergy and assimilation with the international community allow a new English word to appear every 98 minutes, which together allows you to replenish the Chinese language. At the same time, at the phonetic level, there are also interesting changes illustrated in the adaptation of borrowings from the English language.

However, not only the Chinese language is undergoing major changes under the influence of English. The growth of the Chinese population, the development of the Chinese economy, the emergence and expansion of China in the international market have significantly influenced the global linguistic environment. As the English language is also influenced by Chinese, every year it is replenished by about 10 thousand new words.

The publishers of the new version of Oxford English Dictionary state the presence of more than a thousand words of Chinese origin in the modern English language. Moreover, linguists note that the increase in the number of Chinese words in the English language has recently increased significantly.

As a rule, new words are associated with the kitchen, household items, clothing, interior, etc. For example, the noun “ketchup”, which in modern consciousness is more related to European languages, maybe Caucasian, originates from the Fujian dialect of the Chinese language, in which it has the meaning of "tomato juice". Another lexeme “chop suey” (meaning "steamed beef or chicken and sprouted beans", served with rice), “chow mein” ("stewed chicken or beef with noodles") or “dim sum” ("steamed dumplings") (Grimes 1996, Li 2015).

Some borrowing of Chinese language accompanies relocating to other linguistic and cultural traditions. For example, (阴阳) yin yang ("Yin-Yang"), (功夫) gong fu ("kung fu"), (风水) feng shui ("Feng Shui"), etc., Such borrowed words appear not only in the English language. Everything that is connected with Chinese traditions and is considered to be newfangled and popular by the world community is borrowed practically in all languages of the world together with names and firmly fixed in lexicographical sources (Hill 2002).

4. Conclusion

Borrowings that characterize any historical era are a thing of the past and are no longer associated in modern European languages with the newfangled: coolie (laborer), kowtow (low bow)-lexemes that came in the XIX century during colonization. As noted by researchers in the context of contact linguistics, the two most powerful in energy and the prevalence of language can not but have an impact on each other. In particular, Paul Payak writes: "When a huge number of English-speaking people come to China or communicate with the Chinese, there is a mutual influence of the two languages, which is quite a natural trend" (Zheng 2014, Rai and Deng 2016).

The ongoing study which is both theoretical and practical and is aimed at the formation of analysis of the peculiarities of modern Chinese and English relations we must take into consideration the growth and development of language contacts in the era of globalization. It’s important to stress, scientists in the field of contact linguistics and language theory note, English and Chinese languages with such a powerful energy can not but have a significant impact on each other. And if we consider the bilingualism of Chinese youth, we can talk about the rapid growth in the number and quality of contacts between these languages, leading to appropriate linguistic metamorphoses.

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1. Belgorod State University, Russia, 308015, Belgorod, Pobeda Street, 85. E-mail: Elena.iakovleva@inbox.ru

2. Belgorod State University, Russia, 308015, Belgorod, Pobeda Street, 85

3. Belgorod State University, Russia, 308015, Belgorod, Pobeda Street, 85

4. Belgorod State University, Russia, 308015, Belgorod, Pobeda Street, 85