With the wide spread of English in the global context, scholars increasingly call for the reshaping of English education towards teaching English as an international language. One oft-mentioned proposal is to increase...With the wide spread of English in the global context, scholars increasingly call for the reshaping of English education towards teaching English as an international language. One oft-mentioned proposal is to increase students' exposure to more English varieties, in particular the variety of English used in their country or region. Against this backdrop, this study investigated the attitudes of Chinese university students and teachers towards China English (CE), an emerging variety in China and the ideological underpinnings beneath their attitudinal responses. In the study, 33 English teachers and 31 students were asked to first evaluate the understandability and acceptability of CE features that are identified in literature and then provide reasons justifying their choices in a questionnaire survey. Results show that both teacher and student participants were reluctant to accept CE as a legitimate variety but their attitudes diverged as regards specific CE features. The in-depth exploration of their justifications revealed that native speaker English ideology, Chinglish stigma and the communicativeness of CE to the outside world were their major concerns in evaluating CE. Findings in this study have implications for educators who attempt to localize English language teaching.展开更多
This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca (ELF) on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese speakers' narratives of ELF experience in relation to their ...This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca (ELF) on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese speakers' narratives of ELF experience in relation to their views of Englishes. The data retrieved through 769 questionnaires and 35 interviews with Chinese users of English revealed the impacts in four aspects. First, the lack of ELF experience helps to maintain the assumption that conformity to native English is necessary for interactants to understand each other. Second, ELF experience triggers the question about the exclusive connection between nativeness and intelligibility. Third, it raises challenges to the exclusive relevance of native English for successful intercultural communication. Fourth, it helps to develop an awareness of intercultural communication strategies as important for communicative effectiveness in the context of the diversity of English. Attitudes revealed in the four aspects all point to a concern with the issue what is intelligible English. This paper thus discusses intelligibility in relation to (non-) nativeness and the role of intercultural experience in making sense of the issue of intelligibility, which leads to the exploration of pedagogical implications of this study.展开更多
基金supported by the Educational Bureau of Hubei,China,under the Provincial Social Sciences Research Grant[No.13g049]
文摘With the wide spread of English in the global context, scholars increasingly call for the reshaping of English education towards teaching English as an international language. One oft-mentioned proposal is to increase students' exposure to more English varieties, in particular the variety of English used in their country or region. Against this backdrop, this study investigated the attitudes of Chinese university students and teachers towards China English (CE), an emerging variety in China and the ideological underpinnings beneath their attitudinal responses. In the study, 33 English teachers and 31 students were asked to first evaluate the understandability and acceptability of CE features that are identified in literature and then provide reasons justifying their choices in a questionnaire survey. Results show that both teacher and student participants were reluctant to accept CE as a legitimate variety but their attitudes diverged as regards specific CE features. The in-depth exploration of their justifications revealed that native speaker English ideology, Chinglish stigma and the communicativeness of CE to the outside world were their major concerns in evaluating CE. Findings in this study have implications for educators who attempt to localize English language teaching.
文摘This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca (ELF) on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese speakers' narratives of ELF experience in relation to their views of Englishes. The data retrieved through 769 questionnaires and 35 interviews with Chinese users of English revealed the impacts in four aspects. First, the lack of ELF experience helps to maintain the assumption that conformity to native English is necessary for interactants to understand each other. Second, ELF experience triggers the question about the exclusive connection between nativeness and intelligibility. Third, it raises challenges to the exclusive relevance of native English for successful intercultural communication. Fourth, it helps to develop an awareness of intercultural communication strategies as important for communicative effectiveness in the context of the diversity of English. Attitudes revealed in the four aspects all point to a concern with the issue what is intelligible English. This paper thus discusses intelligibility in relation to (non-) nativeness and the role of intercultural experience in making sense of the issue of intelligibility, which leads to the exploration of pedagogical implications of this study.