Rhetorical strategies, electronic media, and China English

Abstract

Scholars tend to explain or predict China English's rhetorical strategies on the basis of Chinese discourse and cultural preferences. This inference model, I argue, falls short in studying the Chinese variety of English because, first, it essentializes both China English and Chinese, treating their discursive strategies as two easily generalizable, static entities; second, it neglects context, which determines the semiotic meaning potential of any language. I propose an alternative model that studies China English with context treated as the main variable. In light of the context model and Aristotelian and Confucian rhetorical concepts, I examine how Chinese youths use English to foster a community and to realize their particular goals in a bulletin board forum. It has been found that they develop patterned rhetorical strategies in the contexts of requesting opinions, seeking advice, sharing experiences, and expressing feelings. These strategies evidence China English's growing meaning potential in electronic medium spaces because they differ remarkably from those identified in other contexts by previous scholarship, and they cannot be easily labeled as traditional Chinese. As China English finds its way into more contexts and domains, I suggest that we adopt the context model to fully unveil the language's expanding meaning potential.

Debating the Capabilities of “Chinese Students” for Thinking Critically in Anglophone Universities

“…This research has given rise to a pedagogical model for negotiating modes of critical thinking through multilingual resources rather than forcing students to choose monolingual rhetorical strategies [7], irrespective of whether it is Zhongwen-only or English-only [89]. Singh's research, which uses a multi-dimensional framework, is eliciting more productive pedagogies and more positive evaluations of multilingual students' capabilities [7].…”

Chinese white‐collar workers and multilingual creativity in the diaspora

“…For example, Li (1993: 19) defines it as embracing “normative English as its core but with Chinese characteristics in lexicon, syntax, and discourse.”Kirkpatrick and Xu (2002) describe it as a socially accepted variety bearing a number of Chinese syntactic and pragmatic norms in the future. You (2008: 247) also views it as “a rather sophisticated, self‐sustaining linguistic system” with elements, structures, and rules drawn from both English and other languages. However, white‐collar worker language defies the notion of China English as a discrete linguistic system like Standard English or Standard Mandarin.…”

“…Creativity in pragmatic strategies, discursive patterns, and speech acts has also attracted scholarly attention. For example, Kirkpatrick (1991; 1993), Kirkpatrick and Xu (2002), and You (2008; 2010) have noted the wide variety of discourse strategies that Chinese‐English bilinguals use in the contexts of letter writing, school essay writing, and online communication. Lee (2004), Stanlaw (2004) and Moody (2006) also highlight the inventiveness of Japanese and Korean artists when they compose song lyrics in English to convey their feelings and metropolitan sentiments.…”

“…For example, Stefanescu (2005) observed the mixing of English expressions in Romanian Internet‐mediated communication among information technology (IT) specialists. You (2008) noted the rhetorical strategies that Chinese college students and graduates developed when communicating in English on electronic bulletin boards. To grasp the creative meaning potential of English enacted by the college‐educated workforce, we need to achieve some fundamental knowledge of them as professionals, as private individuals, and as literary beings.…”

China English as a Variety of English and its Implications on ELT in Chinese Context

“…In terms of its potential, You (2008) recommends context model to analyze China English which indirectly shows the growing potential of China English in rhetorical strategies in electronic media [13].…”