Chinese pragmatic norms and ‘China English’

Abstract

In this paper we shall first consider a selection of discourse and rhetorical norms of Modern Standard Chinese and then contrast them with a comparable selection of discourse and rhetorical norms of an ‘inner circle’ variety of English. As the transfer of discourse and rhetorical norms from a first to a second language commonly occurs, we predict that a Chinese variety of English is characterised by a number of discourse and rhetorical norms derived from Chinese. We argue that the presence of these L1 discourse and rhetorical norms should not be seen as ‘deviations’ from Anglo norms, but that, as Chinese speakers are more likely to use the language with other English speakers in the East Asian region rather than with speakers of inner circle varieties of English, the Chinese variety of English is actually a more culturally appropriate model of English than any superimposed ‘Anglo’ norm. Our discussion also considers the importance in China traditionally attached to ‘models’ and ‘standards’ and speculates on the extent to which educators and officials in China are likely to accept a Chinese variety of English as a model for the classroom.