English Loan-words in Chinese

Tentative Study of English Loan-words in ChineseSubmitted to the School of Foreign Languages for Practicum in Using the English LanguageCONTENTSABSTRACT (i)摘要 (ii)1Introduction (1)2Why English loanwords come to China (2)2.1The social and historical factors (2)2.2Chinese traditional culture, the psychological factors (3)2.3The respective features of the English and Chinese languages (4)3The development of English loanwords in Chinese (5)3.1Coming in the 1980s (5)3.2Rising in the 1990s (6)3.3Booming in the 21st century (7)4Borrowing Methods of English Loanwords in Chinese (9)4.1Loan words borrowed phonetically and semantically (9)4.2Loan words translated according to their original meaning (10)4.3Loan 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)4.5English “aliens” (12)4.5.1 Abbreviations (12)4.5.2 Oral English words (13)4.6Half loan word, half loan translation (13)4.7Borrowings imitating the English sound (14)5The influence of English loanwords in Chinese (16)5.1The creation of Chinese words (16)5.2The forms of transliteration and abbreviation (16)5.3Enlarging words in science, life and entertainment (17)5.4Deriving and composing many new words (17)6Conclusion (19)Bibliography (21)AbstractThe 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摘要社会的发展和对词汇的需求量成为了词汇发展的基本条件和强大推动力。

随着中国更深入的对外开放，中国与其他国家有了更深的交流，与此同时，人们生活中出现了更多的媒体和信息渠道，这些都为丰富现代汉语词汇提供了便利, 扩大了中文词汇。

借用外来词是识别新鲜事物的一种重要手段。

本论文探讨了英语及汉语两种语言间的借用现象，尤其是词汇借用。

本文通过介绍英语外来词进入中文的多种因素、总结外来词在汉语中的发展、剖析汉语对英语外来词所采用的不同翻译方式以及探索英语外来词对中国语言文化的影响，得出了外来词的使用和创造不能随心所欲的结论。

关键词：英语外来词，民族文化心理，语言，社会1IntroductionLanguage is significant to human communication. It reflects social reality, and carries human civilization. With the development of Chinese society and the expansion of political, economic and cultural exchanges between China and English-speaking countries, language borrowing has become a very common means in the development of Chinese. Chinese speakers often make use of words from English to refer to something which they can not explain in Chinese clearly. And the English words they use are called borrowings, or loanwords. Loanwords may cover many aspects of human life, including politics, art, science, religion and so on. Language borrowing not only enriches the vocabulary of Chinese, but also helps people in China and English-speaking countries to understand each other. Therefore, it is of great value to study language borrowing.This paper attempts to explore language borrowing thoroughly so that more and more people can understand English loan words and use them in a suitable way. The whole thesis is organized into seven parts. The first part is an introduction about the purpose and the fundamental content of the thesis; the second part explains the factors of English loan words’ coming into Chinese; and the third part introduces the development of English loanwords in Chinese; the fourth part offers an analysis of different borrowing methods; and the fifth part puts forward the influence and meaning of English loanwords in Chinese; the last part presents a conclusion of the study.2Why English Loanwords Come to China2.1The social and historical factorsThe Chinese nation and the historical background of different geographical environment is caused by the number of Chinese loanwords disparity. Britain's island nation, the nation is surrounded by water, in the process of the formation and development of foreign invasion and conquest. Early in the 20th century, along with six of Christianity, many Latin words such as mass, the apostle and angel, Pope, monk was assimilated into English. The 8th century A.D. Scandinavian invasion of Scandinavian languages brings you, for example, root, they, ugly, etc. British and some low-lying countries, especially the Netherlands and other countries of the trade development, was led to the English about 2500 words from the Dutch. The Renaissance of inflow of English words is a peak period, this period are humanists ancient Greek and Roman culture, so a Latin and Greek into English, such as pollen and axis omen, genius, etc. With the establishment of the colonies throughout the world, Britain developed the world trade. During this period, English was spread to North America, Latin America, Africa and other regions in the language of a large vocabulary. Until the early 20th century, the British territory occupied a hundred times more colonies, be called "the British empire", do not fall. With the development of international trade settlement, Britain also absorbed many languages from colonies and other countries.With the development of science and technology, the international association of more frequent, lots of English words borrowed, English has become the world's most widely, the most common language, and it continues to constantly form other languages in words. China has a history of more than 5000 years, Han nationality in a long-term sealed, self-sufficient lives environment. Due to the Han nationality in population and economic and cultural development of absolute advantage, so as the ruler of the language is still didn't suffer much influence. Although the Han nationality has absorbed and peripheral to the national borrow some words. But the effects of exposure to Chinese are very limited. In the history of Han nationality, no large-scale overseas conquered several conquering and to conquer surrounding by national. And these are the national culture of ethnic culture. 8O introducedthe reform and opening, along with the influx of foreign culture, economy, as the carrier of loanwords through open gate pouring, history of Chinese loanwords.2.2Chinese traditional culture, the psychological factorsChinese traditional culture is caused by different Chinese loanwords psychological disparity is the main reason for the number. English nation in the process of the formation and development of many foreign invasion and conquer, from this diversity of national characteristic, formed a kind of new things, he is very sensitive to absorb the national outstanding thought and culture, and the use of "open" cultural psychology. The cultural psychology in language is to absorb foreign words furthermore bold use. English words number, absorb assimilation strong function is due to the traditional culture of the English national psychology, the Han nationality has its own traditional culture and psychology. In its long history of development of countless cultural brilliant achievements, and form a complete set, the unique cultural patterns. Foster a sense of national pride and self-confidence. This kind of traditional culture with different psychological tend to the western culture from an exclusive to the psychological effects of alien culture and implement Seclusion policy, foreign language despise in-depth study. The cultural psychology of borrowed words hindered. Investigate its reason, major is formed for a long time of the Han nationality with the characteristics of social culture closed. The Qing dynasty of China has been in the feudal state before. Execute is self-sufficient natural economy. The vast land, rich resources, and many of the population, plus the ancient working people create developed culture and advanced civilization, formed a independent, since long, produced by oneself, the natural circulation system. The economic condition does not need extensive trade contacts, so the neither Chinese nor hiking in the western culture communication is necessary. From the geographical point, China to the west, the traffic is very inconvenient from the social culture and ethnic hindered communication and the foreign language vocabulary of input. In addition, Han ethnic culture is one of the most important characters on systemicness and integrity. The cultural characteristics of borrowed words also limit. From the language structure, Chinese is a self-sustaining square glyph ideogram, while English is featured with letters for the main logo phonetic fractal characters. So whenever using words, the Chinese always try to its system from its systematization and integrity. The processing, make its localization. This feature greatly restricted theborrowed words.2.3The respective features of the English and Chinese languagesEnglish is a kind of sound words, the text that the current world languages use is mostly logo phonetic text. This text written symbols due to less (only 26 letters), therefore has the characteristics of flexibility and plasticity, easy to mutual borrowing. After entering English words, it may, according to needs and affix ads in loanwords. Use native morphology processing of loanwords. This method to form neologisms, English vocabulary treasure increased tens of thousands of words. Chinese and English belong to two "family no relation. Chinese is a ideograms, today is the world's only in the use of a kind of pictophonetic characters .Because of the symbols of the record ideograms words and language, so large number of symbols, morphemes and multifarious, its flexibility and plasticity than logo phonetic text. As the world is only a Chinese ideogram, therefore, Chinese cannot "home" to the same loan. In a small number of modern Chinese words, almost all came from different "clan" logo phonetic writing, but with a letter for the main logo phonetic figure is ideograms text and fusion. English words for the absorption function are assimilated and number of words. Disparity English words have strong absorption of assimilation function. The pod language introduction external word is very flexible. After many external word introductions, like from French gentle, very quick constitutes the new word with English native language affix union, soon presented gentleman, gentle-woman, gently and gentleness. English not only introduces the glossary, moreover also borrows other families language the affix, like in French very active affix able, age, and so on gather with certain English clause constitute the new word. The renaissance, Latin and Greek affix nimbly is also used by many British writers, like suffix ism, prefix an one, co one, de one, ex one, pre one, inter one, pro one and so on. Until today, the English words or affix common pronoun form. With the development of history, particularly with the development of the international trade settlement, English loanwords range throughout the world.3The Development of English loanwords in ChineseThe three main reasons presented in the previous chapter explain the background of English loan-words’ coming and development in China. This chapter explores the development of English loanwords in Chinese. Since the 30 years after China’s reforming and opening up, Chinese load words continue to develop at a fast speed. The number of new load words spring up like mushrooms, such as cloning, the Internet, IELTS, blog, WTO and so on. They appear for many reasons. Some come from the culture of English-speaking countries, some come from new technology invention, and others just come from the English words themselves.The development of English loanword in Chinese can be analyzed from three different time periods—the 1980s, the 1990s and the 21st century. These three major periods reflect China’s huge change, not only in the economic field, but also in people’s daily lives. They have their special features and each play a one and only role in the evolution of English loanwords in Chinese.3.1Coming in the 1980sIn the 1980s, vast changes take place in China quietly. President Deng Xiaoping's reform policy opened China to the world again. Numerous ambitious young people rushed to China’s southeast coast for gold. CPC Central Committee also made an important decision, which declared that 14 coastal cities were designed as coastal cities of open economy and Hainan Island a special economic zone.special economic zone; SEZ special economic zone; SEZ special economic zone; SEZ special economic zone; SEZ special economic zone; SEZ From then on, with the coming of English speakers and the introduction to new science and technology, English loan words stream in as well. After 30 years of opening and reform, a lot of English words from different aspects coming into our language have been absorbed into our daily speech.In the beginning of the 1980s ,”karaoke” became fashion in China, then its form changed into “KTV” form , which is still a popular form of public entertainment in today. Now if we want to describesomebody’s liking for singing so ngs , we may say he likes “K歌”. Another example is “Disco”, a kind of dance form which has been seen as fashion in the mid-80s. It became a important part of people’s lives in that times , then a lot of relevant loanwords derived from it , such as “迪厅”，“迪吧”，“蹦迪”and so on.”霹雳舞”（break dance）is also a kind of loanword, but it is very short-lived. This kind of loanwords mainly comes from our lives. In 1980s, the impact of the AIDS began to spread in the world .At first we have a transliteration of its name as "爱滋病" in China . Then we renamed it in order to avoid misunderstandings, "艾滋病", Hong Kong and Taiwan still use the term "爱滋病". AIDS form letter words are also used in our daily life. After AIDS, we also have some other words associated with ADIS, such as HIV, AIDS orphans. "Bikini" swimsuit also began to appear in China during this period .We call it as“比基尼”. All of these phenomena showed the conservative social attitudes to the change by the 30years’ opening and reform. PC’s emergence began to change peop le's lives. TOEFL, GRE test reflects the study of China's new education system, meanwhile they created new word in Chinese (托福and GRE).English loanwords in the 1980s mainly come from the fresh and new things in western culture, western lives and western products. They appeared at such an amazing speed that a huge number of English loanwords became part of our daily speech at those times.3.2Rising in the 1990sIn the 1990s, China took a more confident and open attitude to meet the world's attention. Meanwhile, the rise of the Internet in the world not only greatly advanced the progress of science and technology, but also changed people's way of life. China’s technologic development in internet field begun to renew itself thoroughly, so that it can keep the pace of the whole world. Then a large number of computer terms and internet terms came into people’s day-to-day lives. This period as a time could not find a suitable translation, Chinese first introduced the internet and the Internet directly as the two-letter form of foreign words, followed by “互联网”, “国际互联网”, “英特网” and other translations, the National Science and Technology Committee for Terms in 1997 formally recommended the name "因特网".It has experienced several years of chaos, "因特网" This translation has finally been accepted by the public. With the Internet came ，a large number offoreign words transliterated into Chinese, such as “伊妹儿”, BBS, FTP, P2P, “黑客”, “特洛伊木马”, MSN. With the development of Internet culture , blog’s rise has made a more deep development of internet culture, and then rise t o many related words, such as “博文”and “博主”. These loanwords are mainly terms or related to such terms. There is no doubt that at this period the development of English loanwords in Chinese owe a great deal the Internet.3.3Booming in the 21st centuryAt the beginning of the 21st century, China became a new member of the WTO. It means that after 15 years of arduous efforts, China has finally become a new member of WTO. It also indicates that China's opening up has entered a new stage. So many foreign words in economic activity come to be active, such as the WTO, CEPA, and GDP. In recent years, CPI, PPI have begun to frequently appear in the media, and of course they have become quite familiar to people. During this time “数码相机” (digital camera),“数码摄像机"(digital camera) also become a part of the lives of ordinary people. GPS technology become more mature and more widely used in car navigation, outdoor sports, so do other aspects of mobile location applications. "IC card" began to emerge in the last century, is widely available in this period, such as “交通卡”,“身份证” and so on. High technology not only changed people’s lives, but also created new members into Chinese language. Meanwhile western culture such as Hollywood movies and hip-pop music, in this period, China has more chance to accept different kinds of culture from different countries. People can see different kinds of films in the cinema or in some international film festival. Sometimes one film will lead new trend and product new loanword. Last years, the most popular film “Avatar”, written and directed by James Cameron, leads the new reform of film technology. It is a 3-D IMAX science fiction. This film made the 3-d technology and IMAX both very popular in China. Then the two load words “3D” and “IMAX” used very frequently in daily life of common people. In the field of music , “嘻哈”(hip pop) became very popular in China in 21st century. It is a cultural movement that began among urban African American and Latino youth in New York City and has since spread around the world. As hip pop came into China, people were absorbed by its free style and special way of sing or talk. Then “嘻哈” became a load word in our own language. What’ more, in today’s world, Internet culture infiltrated into every aspect of people’s lives. It has become more and more developed. We have “Facebook” and “Twitter” ,then we used”脸谱”and “推特” to name them in our language. Fresh thing gives life to new English loanword and lead it into a new stage. In 21st century , English loanwords mainly lie in high-tech field and cultural sphere .They have one same feature, their numbers are huge than before. It was caused by today’s quick life style and fast speed of appearing of new things.All in all, in the past 30 years, English loan words in Chinese develop in such a rich and varied way. In the 1980s, they were introduced into our country. In the 1990s, they became more mature than before. Now their families expand at an amazing speed. We believe that there will be an increasingly large number of English loanwords into our Chinese language, which will not only enrich our language but also our culture.4Borrowing Methods of English Loanwords in ChineseJust as what we discussed in the previous chapter, after the C hina’s reforming and opening up, English loanwords began to spring up in China. In recent years, a considerable number of English loan words, such as “X 光”(guāng)",“γ 射线”(shèx i àn), “可口可乐”(coca cola) , “麦克风”(microphone), “比基尼”(bikini), “超市”(supermarket)and English abbreviations such as “WTO",“CDMA",have been existing in Chinese publications and people’s daily life. Some linguistics analyse these words basing on the time when they were introduced into China, and some classify them into different types according to their characteristics. In our paper, according to their borrowing methods, we classify these English loan words in Chinese into seven types.4.1Loan words borrowed phonetically and semanticallyIt means "音借词" in Chinese. It is the kind of English loan words borrowed phonetically and semantically, but not morphologically. It means that some English words are borrowed into Chinese through the way of using the Chinese characters which share the same sounds with those English words, to represent the English ones. But in new words, those Chinese characters do not have their original meaning any more, and they only possess their own pronunciation and writing form.For example, the word“可口可乐”(coca cola), “coca cola” in English is pronounced as /kəʊkə, kəʊlə/, when the drink was introduced to China, people imitated its pronunciation “kěkǒukělè”and named it “可口可乐”. Also, “妈咪”(mummy)is classified into this kind too. In Chinese, “妈咪” is pronounced “mā mi”, it is similar to“mummy(/' mʌmi/)” in English. To some Chinese young people, those音借词sound very fashionable, so they like to use these worlds very much.In Chinese, most of the English names for people, place are borrowed through this way. Such English loan words include: 纽约”(New York),“伦敦”(London),“柏拉图”( Plato) and so on. Besides, some food and inventions are also usually borrowed by this way. Such English loan words include: “三明治”(Sandwich), “可口可乐”(coca cola), “麦克风”(microphone) and so on . Some other English loanwords like: “酷”(cool)、迪斯科”(disco)、“欧佩克”(OPEC)、“托福”(TOEFL)、“雅皮士”(Yuppies)、“特氟隆”(teflon)、“比基尼”(bikini)、“尤里卡”(EURECA)、“披头士”(Beatles)、“腊克”(locquer)、“朋克”(punk)、“黑客” (hacker)、“克隆”(clone)、“雷达”(radar). These words are frequently used in people’s daily life, now.4.2Loan words translated according to their original meaningIt means "译借词" in Chinese, and it refers to the kind of English loan words by translating them according to their original meaning.For example, the root of telephone is “tele”, and “tele” means “distance” and “far away” in English. “Phone” is a receiver. So in Chinese it is used to refer to the electronic equipment that converts sound into electrical signals that can be transmitted over distances and then converts received signals back into sound. And “调制调解器”(modem), “电视”(television), “工商管理硕士”(MBA) are also come into being by translating them according to their original meaning in English.What we should pay attention to is that there is a special kind of"译借词", that is the kind constructed by taking an English word or phrase as a model and translating it in to Chinese morpheme by morpheme. In the new words, the Chinese words loose their original meaning, too.For example, “马力”(horse power). In this word, 马（m ǎ）indicates the English word “horse” and “power” is translated into “力”（l ì）, so a new Chinese word “马力” has been used to refer to “horse power”in English. Another typical example is “蜜月”(honeymoon). In Chinese, “honey”is translated into “蜜(mì)” and “moon”means “月（yuè）”. According to “honeymoon”, “蜜(mì)” and “月（yuè）” was put together as “蜜月” to refer to the happy travel taken by the newlyweds after the wedding.Besides, many other English loan words like “机关枪”(machine gun), “足球”(football), “鸡尾酒会”(cocktail party) 、“超人(superman)、“超级明星”(superstar)、“超市”(supermarket)、“毫微技术” (nano-technology)、“千年虫” (millennium bug)、“热线” (hot line)、“冷战” (cold war)、“绿卡” (green card)、“情商” (emotional quotient) are also come into being through the same way. Many experts call this special kind as “mo j i e(摹借)” and we can regard it as a subdivision of "yi jie ci".4.3Loan words composed of both an English part and a Chinese partIt means “混借词” in Chinese. It refers to the kind of English loan words composed of both English part and Chinese part. More specifically, there is always a Chinese noun to denote the type after the English loan words.For example, “啤酒” (beer) is composed of English word “beer” and Chinese word “酒”. People used “啤(pí)” just because its pronunciation (pí) is similar to English sound /biə/ of “beer”. In Chinese “酒” is a noun describing a kind of drink, so “啤酒” in Chinese is used to refer to “beer” in English; and “吉普车”(jeep) is also made up of “吉普” and “车”. In this word, “吉普(jípǔ)” is used to imitate the sound of English word “jeep” / ji:p/, and “车” is a Chinese noun denoting that it is a kind of vehicle.There are many other examples belonging to this kind of English loan words like AA制、BP机、AB股、SOS儿童村、IC卡、B超、AC米兰队、三K党、KTV包房、U2型飞机、T恤. This kind of words have their own advantages. They are easy for people to understand and they make the communication more convenient among people.4.4A shift in the meaning of some established native Chinese CharactersWe call it "转借词" in Chinese. It means to substitute the foreign morpheme with the same or similar native morpheme, only borrowing the foreign meaning. In Chinese, this means a shift in the meaning of some established native Chinese Characters, so as to accommodate the meaning of English words. That is, the word has already existed in Chinese language, when borrowing the same word from English, people assimilated some of its meaning in English which are new to Chinese, and then the meaning of this word in Chinese has been extended. Sometimes, the work is accomplished through an intermediary. And English “zhuan jie ci” in Chinese mainly comes from Japanese.For example, the original meaning of the English word “dream” is1.joy;2.music;3.a series of images, ideas, occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep;4. A condition or achievement that is longed for, etc.And when Chinese used the word, they borrowed the third and fourth meaning only. “封建”(feudal), “演说”(speech), “社会”(society), “物质”(matter), “客观”(objective), “直接”(direct), “解放”(liberate) all come from this way.4.5English “aliens”English “aliens” means direct importation or copy of foreign words without any adaptation. Although there is no established name for this kind of borrowing in Chinese up till now, to some extent we can translate it into Chinese “直借词”. This special kind of borrowing actually happens frequently in Chinese. There are two main kinds of English “aliens”. They are abbrev iation and borrowings of some oral English words which are used in people’s daily communication.4.5.1AbbreviationsAbbreviation means “缩写词” in Chinese. This kind of words are different from others, An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase. Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet allowed Chinese to assimilate the abbreviations more quickly and to use them more frequently in their daily life. Moreover, using them brings Chinese people a lot convenience.The followings are some of the abbreviations: “GDP”, “DVD”, “MTV”, “WTO”, “DNA” and “CT”, etc. They are used frequently in China. Information suggested tha t these forms are “easier” to say thanthe Chinese Characters. And this kind of English words are often used in casual conversation. They are directly used in Chinese without substituting with Chinese characters , so some common people are even not clear about the Chinese equivalents.4.5.2Oral English wordsThe other type of direct importation of foreign words is the borrowings of some oral English words, such as, “OK”, “Yes”, “No” “Bye”, and “Thank you” and so on. They have become a kind of convention, no matter chatting or writing E-mails, people always like to use these English words instead of Chinese.4.6Half loan word, half loan translation“Half loan word, half loan translation” means “半音半意借词”in Chinese, this kind of method is mainly used in the compound foreign words. Each word can be divided into two parts. The first half is translated according to English sound and the second half is translated according to English meaning, or the first part is translated according to English meaning, and the second half is translated according to English sound.These are some of the compound foreign words which are first half loan word, second half loan translation: 山姆大叔, Uncle Sam, 华尔街, Wall-street, 冰淇淋, ice-cream,新西兰, New Zealand, 呼啦圈, hula-hoop, 因特网, Internet, 道林纸, Dowling paper, 唐宁街, Downing Street, 蹦极跳, bunge jumping.According to the above words, it is easy to find that “Uncle Sam” is the combination of the sem antic borrowing of “Uncle”(叔叔) and the phonemic borrowing of “Sam”(山姆). And “华尔街”(Wall-street) is made up of “华尔(hua’er)”, similar to the English sound/hwɔ:l/ of the part “Wall”, and“街(jiē)”，the Chinese equivalent for “street”.There are many other compound foreign words which are first half loan translation, second half loan。