English in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the status, functions, and features of English in contemporary China. It reviews discussions of the official status of English in China and also provides an overview of the functions and uses of English in key domains of use, including the personal domain, by English-knowing bilinguals in contemporary China. Despite the difficulties noted in applying a “varieties-based” approach to Chinese English or China English, Andy Kirkpatrick has usefully suggested a set of commonly-occurring features at the level of grammatical description. Chinese-English language mixing has a long history in China that dates back to the pidgin English of Guangzhou and the treaty ports of China. In the modern era, from the 1980s onwards, English mixing reappeared in Chinese society, in particular, in urban China.

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