Brief Analysis of Chinese Borrowings in English

1. Introduction

Borrowing is a term used in comparative and historical linguistics and according to Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary， “borrowing” can be defined as “something borrowed； esp.： a word or phrase adopted from one language into another.” Borrowing is a very common linguistic phenomenon in language development and English in its development has managed to widen its vocabulary by borrowing words from other languages. Although Chinese borrowings in English is only 1488（Wang， 2002）， accounting for a small part of borrowings in English， Chinese borrowings in English has a history of more than 1000 years. Therefore， analyzing this historical language is of significance.

2. Sources of Chinese Borrowings in English

Garland Cannon （1988）， who has made great contribution to English borrowings from Chinese， divided his collection of 979 Chinese borrowings into 19 semantic fields. In this paper， sources of Chinese borrowings in English fall into two classifications.

2.1 Chinese Borrowings from Chinas Regional Culture and Folk Culture

Most of this kind of borrowings come from politics， religion， historical figures， daily communication and the like. They all reflect the rich characteristics of Chinas regional and folk culture. For example， yamen， mu， lama， Confucius， birds nest， etc. In addition， there are some Chinese borrowings expressing Chinas folk culture. For example， Yangko， so-na， tsaoshu， Wushu and something like these.

2.2 Chinese Borrowings from Chinas Specialty or Things with Chinese Characteristics

With the development of globalization， a large number of words about Chinas specialities or Chinas special things， together with their cultural implications， have entered into western countries and have been absorbed by English one after another. For examples， food （Maotai， chou suey， wonton）， plants （Congou， mango， loquat） and other borrowings like mahjong， silk， yuan and so on.

3. Factors Influencing Chinese Borrowings in English

3.1 Language Contact

According to Wikipedia， language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. When speakers of different languages interact closely， it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Borrowing is one of the various phenomena caused by language contact. People speaking different languages come into contact due to many reasons， such as geographical， cultural exchange， trade， war， migration， culture conquest， and so on. Eugene A. Nida in his Language and Culture argues， “Since culture is defined succinctly as ‘the totality of beliefs and practices of a society， nothing is of greater strategic importance than the language through which its beliefs are expressed and transmitted and by which most interaction of its members takes place.”（Nida， 2001）

With the territorial expansion of the British Empire， English has spread to many countries including China， and borrowed many words from China. In this period silk is a representative of borrowed word from China. From then on， a lot of words spread to the British Empire， followed by yin， yang and other words.

3.2 Lexical Gap

In linguistics a lexical gap is a word or other form that does not exist in some language but which would be permitted by the grammatical rules of the language. In practice， culture has a deep influence on language， especially on the vocabulary of language. When one language lacks the new concept， language users usually find it easier to borrow the existing terms from other languages than to make new ones. Naturally， more borrowing words exist in one particular field of one language if there are more lexical gaps. From the Chinese language English has taken numbers of words into its vocabulary to fill the lexical gaps between them. English borrowing words from Chinese mainly center on food （spring roll， pak choy）， customs and cultural specialities （kow tow， fengshui）， names and places （Mencius， Amoy）， education and recreation （pinyin， Tai chi） and other words with Chinese characteristics and social features（Maoism， xiahai， two civilization）， to mention only a few.

3.3 Prestige

T. Mcarthur and F. Mcarthur （1992： 141） points out that one of the reasons for borrowing is “prestige associated with using words from another language”. It indicates that prestige serves as one of the main factors leading to borrowing. It is universally acknowledges that no language enjoys inherent prestige. However， a language may gain prestige in certain domains due to various factors. Cultural， social， political and economic factors may enhance the importance of a language and ultimately break the original balance between languages and make a language prestigious in certain domains （Lu）. Chinese language， with a long history， has gain prestige in some fields from which English has borrowed numbers of words， such as words pertaining to Wushu， musical instruments （so-na）， Chinese medicine （lingchi， ginseng） and tea （oolong， bohea）.

4. Conclusion

With times passing by， some Chinese borrowings in English will gain a firm foothold and become a real English vocabulary. While， some Chinese borrowings may be due to slowly fade out of peoples sight and disappear forever because of all kinds of reasons. At present， China is playing a very important role in international community. Therefore， more Chinese vocabularies will enter into English language more quickly.

References：

[1]Cannon，G.1998.Chinese borrowings in English，American Speech.

[2]Lu Shan，2008.The Study of the Motivation Theory on English Borrowing from Chinese.Wuhan.

[3]Nida，Eugene A，2001.Language and Culture：Context in Translation.Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[4]Wang Rongpei，2002.An Advanced Course of English Lexicology.Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

作者簡介：王婧菲（1990.10.24-），女，漢族，山西運城人，現就讀于西安外國語大學英文學院2014級外國語言學及應用語言學專業。學歷：碩士研究生。主要研究方向：應用語言學。