A typology of lexical borrowing in Modern Standard Chinese

Angela Cook

doi:10.1186/s40655-018-0038-7

Abstract

The question of how best to classify Modern Standard Chinese loanwords is rather a fraught one. Various principles of categorization have been proposed in the literature; however, previous classification systems have generally covered only a relatively small proportion of all loanwords currently in use. Even attempts to provide an exhaustive catalog of lexical borrowing strategies have often been characterized by non-transparent structure, internal inconsistency or even incompleteness. This has hindered meaningful cross-linguistic comparisons of language change in Modern Standard Chinese vis-à-vis other languages. The aim of this paper is to present a new and clearly structured, comprehensive inventory of the different types of lexical borrowing that have occurred in Modern Standard Chinese over the past 30 to 40 years. Systematic cross-linguistic comparisons reveal that examples of almost all of the categories of lexical borrowing noted in the literature on English language change can likewise be provided in relation to Modern Standard Chinese. In addition, Chinese offers several options for borrowing lexical items not available to speakers of English. Overall, this paper presents a picture of Modern Standard Chinese speakers as cultivating a flexible, creative, playful approach to their use of language. The explicit recognition of the fact that many so-called “alphabetic words” are established loanwords is found to have implications for the typological classification of Chinese script, as well as for other fields such as second language teaching. A secondary finding not anticipated in the research question is that Chinese orthography shows tentative early signs of potentially developing from a morpho-logographic to a phonetic writing system.

Highlights

1.1 Research into contact-induced language change in ChineseContact-induced language change has been a popular topic of scholarly inquiry in Chinese linguistics at least since the great linguist Wang Li published a number of works in the 1940s, in which he discussed the “Europeanization” of Chinese grammar (Wang 王力 1984, 1985).1 Early treatments of the topic tended to focus on contact-induced changes in word order and syntactic structures
Different categories are defined largely in terms of the processes undergone in borrowing and forming the new words in question, as well as the internal structure of these words and, in some cases, their orthographic representation and spoken realization. It would, in theory, be perfectly possible to adopt a number of quite different strategies. These could include assigning new loans to different subclasses based on their language of origin; classification of loanwords according to semantic field; categorization of lexical borrowing fundamentally in terms of internal vs. external change; investigation of the semantic, structural, or other impact of new developments; or even an analysis of the different types based on the perceived reason for their existence and the factors contributing to their attractiveness and/or usefulness to users of the language
The ensuing discussion will focus on three different areas, commenting first on issues relating to the taxonomy of language change, on matters relating to language and dialect contact, before drawing all these observations together to make some remarks on orthographic trends and even venture a few tentative predictions regarding the possible implications of these

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Research into contact-induced language change in ChineseContact-induced language change has been a popular topic of scholarly inquiry in Chinese linguistics at least since the great linguist Wang Li published a number of works in the 1940s, in which he discussed the “Europeanization” of Chinese grammar (Wang 王力 1984, 1985). Early treatments of the topic tended to focus on contact-induced changes in word order and syntactic structures. Since the introduction of the open-door policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the widespread adoption of increasing numbers of loanwords in Modern Standard Chinese, interest in (2018) 4:6 language change within the field of Chinese linguistics has expanded to include contact-induced lexical change. It is generally agreed that a significant proportion of linguistic developments (lexical as well as grammatical) in Modern Standard Chinese in recent decades fall under the heading of contact-induced change; within this body of research, contact both with other Sinitic dialects and with non-Sinitic languages features prominently. In the literature on lexical change a favorite focus has been the dramatic increase in the popularity of “alphabetic words,” known as “lettered words” (defined in the literature as expressions whose written form makes use of at least one Latin letter), with many historical linguists entering into lively debate on the desirability or otherwise of the use of these novel expressions in Chinese writing. Few authors confine themselves solely to observations of language change without feeling entitled or perhaps—one sometimes suspects—obliged to pass judgment on the merits and drawbacks of these changes and to point out implications for language planning, some even going so far as to suggest amendments to current language planning policies

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