Abstract
This present study aims to investigate the colligational structures in China English. A corpus-based and comparative methodology was adopted in which three verbs of communication (discuss, communicate and negotiate) were chosen as the research objects. The Corpus of China English (CCE) was built with 13.9 million tokens. All the colligational patterns of the three verbs were extracted from the CCE by the tool Colligator, and analyzed in comparison with those from the British National Corpus (BNC). The major findings of the study are: (1) China English and British English share some common core colligational patterns, for example, the V deter. pattern for the verb discuss, the V prep. and V adv. patterns for the verb communicate, and the V prep. and V deter. patterns for the verb negotiate are the most frequently used patterns of all the colligations in both corpora. (2) The number of occurrences of some colligational patterns in CCE is significantly greater than that in BNC. They are V pl. n., V conj. and V prop. n. for the verb discuss, V prep. for the verb communicate, and V infin. to for the verb negotiate. (3) Some colligational patterns occur less frequently in CCE than those in BNC, such as the patterns V deter., V pers. pron. and V poss. pron for the verb discuss, V sing. n. and V deter. for the verb communicate, and V adj. for the verb negotiate. (4) No new colligational patterns have been found in China English. The study extends research on World Englishes, and its findings can attest to the process of structural nativisation of the English language used in the contexts of China.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ge, C.: Random thoughts on some problems in Chinese-English translation. Chin. Transl. J. 2, 1–8 (1980)
Huang, J.: The positive role of ‘Sinicism’ in the English-translated version. Chin. Transl. J. 1, 39–45 (1988)
Wang, R.: Chinese English is an objective reality. J. PLA Foreign Lang. Inst. 1, 2–7 (1991)
Jia, G., Xiang, Y.: In defence of Chinese English. Foreign Lang. Teach. 5, 34–38 (1997)
Li, W.: China English and Chinglish. Foreign Lang. Teach. Res. 4, 18–24 (1993)
Xu, Z.: Chinese English: Features and Implications. Open University of Hong Kong Press, Hong Kong (2010)
Cannon, G.: Chinese Borrowings in English. Am. Speech 63, 3–33 (1988)
Jiang, Y.: China English: issues. Stud. Featur. Asian Engl. 5(2), 4–23 (2002)
Du, R., Jiang, Y.: “China English” in the past 20 years. Foreign Lang. Teach. Res. 33(1), 37–41 (2001)
Bolton, K.: China Englishes: A Sociolinguistic History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003)
Kirkpatrick, A.: Research China English as a lingual franca in Asia: the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) project. Asian Engl. 13(1), 4–8 (2010)
Liu, Y., Zhao, Y.: English spelling variation and change in newspapers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan: which English spelling system is preferred in the Chinese news media: British or American? Engl. Today 31(4), 5–14 (2015)
Stadler, S.: Conventionalized politeness in Singapore Colloquial English. World Engl. 37, 307–322 (2018)
Ai, H., You, X.: The grammatical features of English in a Chinese Internet discussion forum. World Engl. 34(2), 211–230 (2015)
Hu, J., Zhang, P.: A corpus-based study on nativization of high-frequency verbs of transformation in China’s English newspapers. Corpus Linguist. 2(1), 59–70 (2015)
Ma, Q., Xu, Z.: The nativization of English in China. In: Xu, Z., He, D., Deterding, D. (eds.) Researching Chinese English: The State of the Art. ME, vol. 22, pp. 189–201. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53110-6_13
Yu, X., Wen, Q.: Collocation patterns of evaluative adjectives of English in Chinese newspapers. Foreign Lang. Teach. Res. 254(5), 23–28 (2010)
Svensén, B.: A Handbook of Lexicography: The Theory and Practice of Dictionary-Making. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2009)
Schneider, E.W.: Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2007)
Mukherjee, J., Hoffmann, S.: Describing verb-complementational profiles of new Englishes: a pilot study of Indian English. Engl. World-Wide 27, 147–173 (2006)
Schilk, M.: Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2011)
Schilk, M., Bernaisch, T., Mukherjee, J.: Mapping unity and diversity in South Asian English lexicogrammar: verb-complementational preferences across varieties. In: Hundt, M., Gut, U. (eds.) Mapping Unity and Diversity World-wide, pp. 137–165. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2012)
Yu, X.: The use of the word “foreign” in China’s English newspapers: a corpus-based study. Foreign Lang. Educ. 27(6), 23–26 (2006)
Liu, M., Wu, Y.: Beyond frame semantics: insight from Mandarin verbs of communication. In: 4the Chinese Lexical Semantic Workshop. Hongkong: Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hongkong (2003)
Liang, M., Li, W., Xu, J.: Introduction to Corpora. Foreign Languages Teaching and Researching Press, Beijing (2010)
Mukherjee, J., Gries, S.: Collostructional notification in New Englishes: verb-construction associations in the International Corpus of English. Engl. World-Wide 30(1), 27–51 (2009)
Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by a grant from the Laboratory of Language Engineering and Computing of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies under the project entitled “A Study on Grammatical Nativization of China English” (Grant No. LEC2017ZBKT002), a grant from the Humanities and Social Science Planning and Funding Office of Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China under Grant No. 15YJA740048 (China English or Chinglish: A Study Based on China English Corpus), and a grant from Guangdong Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (Grant No.GD14XWW20). It was also part of the research achievements of the special innovation project entitled “A Study on the Definitions of Chinese-English Dictionaries for CFL Learners from the User’s Perspective” (Grant No. 2017WTSCX32) granted by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Xia, L., Xia, Y., Li, Q. (2019). Colligational Patterns in China English: The Case of the Verbs of Communication. In: Sun, M., Huang, X., Ji, H., Liu, Z., Liu, Y. (eds) Chinese Computational Linguistics. CCL 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11856. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32381-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32381-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32380-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32381-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)