China English: To be or not to be? - A Survey on the Sociolinguistic Background of Its Recognition and Development

Abstract

Spreading at the present rate, English will further increase its importance as the global lingua franca in this century, not only in countries of the inner and outer circles, but also in the expanding circle. Meanwhile, with the appearance of the ‘craze for learning English’ these past years in China, one of the EFL countries, more attention is focused on the research about this language phenomenon, and ‘China English’ thus has been proposed by Chinese linguists to represent the result of the localization and nativization of English in Chinese background. However, little notice about ‘China English’has been taken by linguists and researchers in other countries. Also fewer empirical or survey studies can be found in this field since such research is only at the starting point in China. Therefore, this paper investigates the sociolinguistic background of the recognition and development of China English. 365 subjects of various levels are involved in the questionnaire survey. Their answers are about the ultimate aims of learning English and the social functions of English in their life. The results are in favor of a more objective and convincing conclusion, that is, China English is inevitably going to be an important variety of English and will exert the personal function of English for efficiency and effectiveness in both intercultural and intracultural communications. It is hoped that the discussion would help both recognition and acceptance of the new variety of English in the world. Suggestions on the relationship between China English and EFL teaching are also provided as references.