The China English fallacy

Abstract

Over the past decades, the pageantry of selecting the appropriate terminology for representing the Chinese English variety has evolved into a movement promoting the widely celebrated term, China English. In He’s (2020: 14) book of Chinese English in World Englishes: Education and Use in the Professional World , an old Chinese saying, ‘without a legitimate name, without authority to the words’, is conjured to justify the rebranding of the Chinese English variety. However, initially, the term ‘China English’ did not automatically win the bid; many other terms were also pitched for being the representative terminology, including ‘Chinese colored English’ (Huang, 1988), ‘Chinese-style English’ (Gui, 1988), ‘Sinicized English’ (Zhang, 1997; Jin, 2002; Jiang, 2003), and even the widely criticized ‘Chinglish’ (Wang, 1999; Zhuang, 2000; Qiong & Wolff, 2003) had its day in the sun. Gradually, scholarly endorsements of China English begin to grow. However, one might wonder: What is the uniqueness of English in China that could trigger such decades of efforts to assert the ownership of an English variety through a mere terminological update?