2 research outputs found
Pragmatic borrowing between English and Chinese: A comparative study of two-way exchanges
Through centuries of cross-cultural communication, English has been enriched by
elements from other languages around the world, including Chinese; meanwhile, English has also exerted considerable influence on the Chinese language. Lexical
exchanges between the two languages have been studied in previous research, and
yet are mostly restricted to the lexical items themselves. This thesis particularly
explores the pragmatic aspect of this language contact, examining items that are used
to convey attitudinal or interpersonal meanings. I conduct a series of case studies on
bi-directional pragmatic borrowing between English and Chinese, using a variety of
data sources, which include dictionaries, corpora, social media data, and other online
resources. I take a broad view of what constitutes pragmatic borrowing: I not only
investigate the borrowing and integration of discourse-pragmatic items that are
transferred between the two languages, but also examine the pragmatic motivations
for the borrowing of other lexical items and even grammatical units. The items
discussed in the thesis range from parts of words, specifically affixes, to individual
words to longer structures, and contextual analysis shows that all of these have been
used to achieve pragmatic effects. The study demonstrates the important role of
cultural context, speaker creativity, and sociolinguistic factors in the borrowing, integration, and innovative use of linguistic items
Bowdoin Orient v.134, no.1-24 (2004-2005)
https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1005/thumbnail.jp