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Exploring the functionality of English in China: A tale of two cities

Paper · 2020 · Zhichang Xu and Danya Zhang

Summary

Xu and Zhang ask what English actually does for educated bilingual Chinese speakers, and how those roles differ between two contrasting urban settings: Beijing, the capital, and Kunming, a provincial city in the southwest. They frame the question within the World Englishes move away from a single, norm-bound English toward plural, locally shaped Englishes. They also draw on related shifts: from cataloguing variety features to studying how speakers mix languages, and the functional, multilingual and dynamic interactive turns. They add two turns of their own, translanguaging and transmedia. The method is qualitative. Ten Chinese-English bilingual professionals took part in semi-structured interviews, and the authors coded the transcripts against B. Kachru's four functions of English and Halliday's functions of language. English turns out to serve a wide spread of roles: a working tool, a medium for relationships, a regulatory channel, a creative outlet, and a means of exploration. Beyond these practical uses, it also becomes part of the speakers' identity. The study matters because it shows an Expanding Circle country actively shaping English rather than just receiving it.

Key points

  • China is estimated to have 350–500 million learners and users of English. The range of functions has widened from the 1970s onward, when China introduced its "reform and open door" policies.
  • The analytic frame merges Kachru's instrumental, regulative, interpersonal and imaginative/innovative functions with Halliday's functions: ideational, textual, personal, interactional, heuristic, and representational/informative.
  • There were ten participants, coded B (Beijing) and K (Kunming). Their work contexts include:
    • state media (B3, a journalist)
    • border security (K4, a customs officer at an international airport)
    • multilingual event management (B1)
    • creative writing in spare time (B1, K3)
  • All participants use English as a working language to some degree, which is the instrumental function. Only some show the regulative, creative, informative or heuristic functions.
  • The central finding is a two-sided pattern:
    • yong: practical, visible uses of English.
    • ti: English as an essence or identity marker, which also acts as a gatekeeper of social status.
    • Together, English and Chinese act as a nexus linking local and global, real and virtual, and different ethnic communities.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Instead of assigning one function per speaker, the authors code each participant against a merged, multi-source taxonomy, so one person can carry several functions at once.
  • I2. The yong/ti split separates what language overtly accomplishes from what it implicitly signals about the speaker, such as status or identity.
  • I3. The post-varieties view treats ad hoc mixing of English with other languages as normal practice, not as error or interference.
  • I4. The comparative design applies the same interview protocol at two sociolinguistically different sites to surface contrasts that a single site would hide.
  • I5. The participants' functions are tied to concrete settings (newsroom, airport customs, events), so a function is read off the context of use rather than the form alone.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (frames): Speech-act and function labelling in prag could be multi-label, drawing on more than one inventory (e.g. Kachru- and Halliday-style functions), rather than forcing a single act per utterance.
  • I2 (frames): Implicature handling could keep a separate layer for what an utterance reveals about its speaker, apart from its propositional content, so explanations can show both.
  • I3 (tokens): The en tokenizer and tagger could flag code-mixed spans and local lexical items as a distinct, valid category instead of mis-tagging them as noise or foreign words.
  • I4 (learn): Evaluation could be split by source register or region of text with identical metrics, exposing domain-specific failures that a pooled score masks.
  • I5 (world): The world model could store the setting or institution of a text as an entity that constrains which roles and acts are plausible for its participants.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

🎓Monash UniversityMelbourne · Australia60 works · 54,866 citations

Also on the byline: Yunnan Normal University.

 Fields, topics and concepts

📚 Shelves 4The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 16,039 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 15,891 worksSocial Sciences · 1,772 worksCommunication · 97 works

🧭 Topics 1Research subjects and languages the work is about.English · 2,263 works

Cite

Cite as Zhichang Xu and Danya Zhang. 2020. Exploring the functionality of English in China: A tale of two cities. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-589-611

@article{xu2020exploring,
  title = {{Exploring the functionality of English in China: A tale of two cities}},
  author = {Zhichang Xu and Danya Zhang},
  journal = {Russian Journal of Linguistics 24},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-589-611},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-589-611}
}

References

39 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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  37. Zhichang Xu and Danya Zhang. 2020. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24 (3). 589—611 find
  38. Article history: Received: 30 April 2020 Revised: 13 July 2020 Accepted: 15 July 2020 find
  39. История статьи: Дата поступления в редакцию: 30 апреля 2020 Дата принятия к печати: 15 июля 2020 Bionotes: Zhichang XU, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University, and associate editor for English Today (Cambridge University Press). He has a disciplinary background in applied linguistics and intercultural education. His research areas include world Englishes, applied linguistics, cultural linguistics, intercultural communication, and language education. He has published a research monograph and an edited volume on Chinese English, as well as book chapters, and journal articles in journals such as World Englishes, International Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, Asian Englishes, Intercultural Pragmatics, and Multilingual Education. Contact information: School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts. Monash University. E577, 20 Chancellors Walk, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3800, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: zhichang.xu@monash.edu ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9789-3225 Danya ZHANG is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages and Literature at Yunnan Normal University, China. She is a PhD candidate in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Monash University, Australia. Her research interests include world Englishes and applied linguistics. Contact information: School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Yunnan Normal University. Mingde Building, Chenggong Campus; Yuhua Pianqu, Chenggong District, 650500, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China e-mail: danya.zhang1@monash.edu ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0169-5628 Сведения об авторах: Чжичан СЮЙ, PhD, преподает в Школе языков, литератур, культур и лингвистики Университета Монаша. Является ассоциативным редактором журнала English Today (Изд-во Кембриджского университета). Занимался прикладной лингвистикой и меж-культурным образованием. Сейчас научные интересы сосредоточены на проблемах контактной вариантологии, методики преподавания языков, культурной лингвистики, межкультурной коммуникации и языкового образования. Среди его трудов – монография, ряд отдельных глав в коллективных монографиях и статей в таких журналах, как World Englishes, International Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, Journal Zhichang Xu and Danya Zhang. 2020. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24 (3). 589—611 of Asian Pacific Communication, Asian Englishes, Intercultural Pragmatics, Multilingual Education. Контактная информация: School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Monash University. E577, 20 Chancellors Walk, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3800, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: zhichang.xu@monash.edu ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9789-3225 Данья ЧЖАН преподает на факультете иностранных языков и литературы Юньнаньского педагогического университета, Китай. Обучается в аспирантуре Университета Монаша, Австралия, по направлению «Лингвистика и прикладная лингвистика». Ее научные интересы сосредоточены на контактной вариантологии английского языка и методике преподавания языка. Контактная информация: School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Yunnan Normal University. Mingde Building, Chenggong Campus; Yuhua Pianqu, Chenggong District, 650500, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China e-mail: danya.zhang1@monash.edu ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0169-5628 find

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