Tentative Study of

English Loan-words in Chinese

Submitted to the School of Foreign Languages

for Practicum in Using the English Language

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………i 摘要................................................................ii

1 Introduction ....................................................................................1 2 Why English loanwords come to China ..........................................2

2.1 The social and historical factors ............................................................................. 2 2.2 Chinese traditional culture, the psychological factors ............................................ 3 2.3 The respective features of the English and Chinese languages .............................. 4

3 The development of English loanwords in Chinese ........................5

3.1 Coming in the 1980s ............................................................................................... 5 3.2 Rising in the 1990s ................................................................................................. 6 3.3 Booming in the 21st century ................................................................................... 7

4 Borrowing Methods of English Loanwords in Chinese ..................9

4.1 Loan words borrowed phonetically and semantically ............................................ 9 4.2 Loan words translated according to their original meaning ................................. 10 4.3 Loan words composed of both an English part and a Chinese part ...................... 11 4.4 A shift in the meaning of some established native Chinese Characters ............... 11 4.5 English ―aliens‖ .................................................................................................... 12 4.5.1 Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 12 4.5.2 Oral English words ............................................................................................. 13 4.6 Half loan word, half loan translation .................................................................... 13 4.7 Borrowings imitating the English sound .............................................................. 14

5 The influence of English loanwords in Chinese ............................16

5.1 The creation of Chinese words ............................................................................. 16 5.2 The forms of transliteration and abbreviation ...................................................... 16 5.3 Enlarging words in science, life and entertainment .............................................. 17 5.4 Deriving and composing many new words .......................................................... 17

6 Conclusion ....................................................................................19 Bibliography .....................................................................................21

iii

Abstract

The necessity and the development of the society are the basic conditions and strong power for the vocabulary expansion. With China’s opening and reform to the outside world, there is more communication between China and other countries, and with more media there is more information and convenience, which put forward modern Chinese to enrich its vocabularies.

Borrowing loan-words is one important means to recognize new things. This paper probes into language borrowing, especially the lexical borrowing between the two languages, English and Chinese. By introducing factors of English loan words’ coming into the Chinese language, summarizing the development of English loanwords in Chinese, analyzing different borrowing methods and exploring the influence and meaning of English loanwords in Chinese, this paper draws the conclusion that loanwords cannot be used at random or created with imagination.

Key Words: English loan-words, National cultural psychology, Language, Society

i