从两则双语标识看民国徽州茶商的英语使用特点

Viewing the English Use Characteristics of Huizhou Tea Merchants in the Republic of China from Two Bilingual Signs

民国时期不少在沪徽州茶商已经从事对外贸易,开始大量使用汉英双语商业标识,如上海汪裕泰和陆香森等著名茶号。标识中记载了产品注册商标、名称、产地、广告、注意事项、获奖状况、销售地址等重要信息。这些双语标识不但能够反映徽州茶商的繁荣,也充分体现出当时英语的使用特点,即在时态、语态、句式、标点符号、固定短语、非谓语形式、从句等方面依然表现出浓厚的中国式英语的特点。

During the Republic of China, many Huizhou tea merchants in Shanghai, had engaged in foreign trade and began to use a lot of Chinese-English bilingual commercial logos(signs), such as Shang?hai WANG YUE TAI TEA and LOK HSIANG SUNG. The logo contains major information of the regis?tered trademarks, names, origin, advertisements, precautions, awards status, sales addresses, and so on.These bilingual signs not only reflect the prosperity of Huizhou tea merchants but also fully reflect the characteristics of English use at that time, that is, in terms of tenses, voices, sentence patterns, punctua?tion, fixed phrases, non-predicate forms, clauses, etc. the characteristics of Chinese-style English.