Language and Globalization in Chinese Loanwords

Globalization has a long history and that can be traced back, and therefore each phase of globalization has its uniqueness. Processes of globalization are driven by different infrastructures and are constructed under different contexts in different times of historical periods. ; however, some similarities can be compared. The globalization phenomenon can be distinguished as hard and soft globalization, and the fellow article will be analyzing the soft part, which is the cultural globalization. Also in China, the globalization process also has a long history, and in this history, a large part of it focuses on language has a special position as will be shown in this article.

Chinese and globalization

Globalization processes lead to contact between people and as a consequence, their cultures and languages often mix or blend together. However, as Miao (2005, p. 23) states: "‘The Chinese language is noted for its resistance to lexical importation from foreign languages, and especially for its disfavor against loan adaptation through phonemic transliteration."

The dissemination of Chinese the semination of Chinese has therefore been organized in a uniform and centralized way without being disturbed by any foreign language for many centuries. The first time when loan word came into Chinese, in a rather passive way, was at the end of the 19th century. Also now, that period of time was a history of humiliation in China, and many foreign languages ​​were transmitted into Chinese language within a passive way, on the other hand, the time we live now, in the 21th century, there are still a large numbers of loan words that are assimilating into Chinese - but in language with a totally different way. Below we will look into the linguistic aspects of globalization in these two periods.ese two periods will be the focus of this article, and the analysis of the different globalization patterns will also be made.

First appearance of Colonial globalization and loanwords in the 19th and 20th century: The language started to merge passively during the colonial period

Toward When Chinese history developed to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the royal family was corrupt and decided to block the country from the technological and industrial revolution in Western countries. That decision has made the once so prosperous country rapidly plummet in its development and Chinese people were in great suffering. At the same timeOn the other hand, the Western countries were all eyeing at China, which by the time, was an undeveloped country that knows nothing about western technology. The feudal dynasty that lasted for more than two thousand years was in jeopardy and in the year of 1840, the Opium War began. This was a significant turning point in Chinese history. It broke China's closed-door status, ended the feudal rule, and made China a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and forced it to become involved in the process of globalization. That is also when loan words first appeared in the Chinese language.

They are six main ways for English loan words to be modified into Chinese (yan&deng, 2009, p35-36). Among these six methods, there are two methods are used most often: transliteration of the loan word, which sounds almost the same with the original English pronunciation and the other one is free translation of the loan word, in which the pronunciations of the Chinese and the English are different, but they share the same meaning.

Besides the methods of modification, there are also two main ways in which foreign languages ​​are transmitted. The first way is the translation of western scientific works. At that time, many Chinese people with lofty ideals wanted to emulate the Western system to reform China, and therefore, loan words such as 'democracy'started to appear in the Chinese language. The second way of transformation was that the colonists introduced words forthe items that were not available in China at the time. Words like cola (可乐kělè), chocolate (巧克力qiǎokèlì), coffee (咖啡kāfēi) came into the Chinese language at this time. In order to be more concrete, I would like to give an example of a transliteration loan word that has been introduced to China by colonists. 

A specific case: ：coffee

Let us look at linguistic globalization in that period through a specific case, coffee（咖啡 kāfēi）. The concept of the coffee shop entered China in the early 1920s. In the beginning, most of the coffee shops opened in the concessions of cities such as Shanghai for the colonial army. Gradually, the Chinese began to understand the meaning of the foreign word language of coffee and began to use coffee in their daily lives. However, coffee was not available to the Chinese working class. In the 1930s, Shanghai enjoyed the reputation of Eastern Paris, and the coffee shop became a characteristic of this city. However, coffee was only available to the Chinese middle class and intellectuals. Access to the coffee shop represents a symbol of identity.

‘"Here, the coffee shop space in the concession provides a kind of "feeling structure" for the revolutionaries. In this "feeling structure," the revolutionaries are likely to find a sense of belonging, security, and even a sense of freedom and identity of existence and to fight against the control and oppression of the power center. 

’"Behind this sense of identity is the imagination and appeal to the modern western civilization represented by the cafe. Entering the cafe seems to share the common cultural space with the revolutionary celebrities, and also seems to have acquired some modern taste and identity.'" (Wang, 2006) Here we can see that in the 1930s, coffee has already existed in the Chinese’s ideology. It has become not just a loan word from a foreign language, but a symbol of identity, and a way of life. 

According to Blommaert and Varis (2015, p. 6), "‘Discourses in which people identify themselves and others include a bewildering range of objects towards which such people express affinity, attachment, belonging, or rejection, disgust, disapproval." (2015,p6) The Chinese people were in the colonial state, but they used the consumption of coffee to satisfy their fantasy for class and power. Coffee, as a loan word, as a product of globalization that was produced during the Colonial period, not only has expanded the Chinese lexicon, but also brought a new identity for Chinese people that tied strongly to commodification, and gradually integrated with the Chinese's normal life.

figure 1. coffee shop in Shanghai in 20th century https://www.fliggy.com/content/d-2018031908163604265?ttid=seo.000000576&seoType=origin

figure 2. coffee from Shanghai coffee factory http://coffeesalon.com/news/archives/732

As the status of coffee continued to strengthen in China, coffee and coffee shops were gradually becoming localized, as Appadurai (1996, p. 32) said: "'…What these arguments fail to consider is that at least "as rapidly as forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies, they tend to become indigenized in one or another way."' (1996, p32)  Here iIn the figures we can see that Shanghai's cafes use Chinese-style decoration. Shanghai has also set up its own coffee factory in 1935 and adopted the pattern of Shanghai women in the early 20th century on the outer packaging, so that, identical to what Blommaert and Varis (2015, p. 11) said about Irish pubs, the café shops in Shanghai also blended the global and the local, the presence of the globalized features turns them into instantly recognizable café shops; the local features ensure that the overwhelmingly local customers do not feel out of place in such shops. 

Coffee, as a loan word, as a product of globalization that was produced during the Colonial period, not only has expanded the Chinese lexicon, but also brought a new identity for Chinese people that tied strongly to commodification, and gradually integrated with the Chinese's normal life.

Nowadays, China is becoming one of the biggest coffee consumer countries with an increased rate of 30% per year. Coffee has become a part of people's daily life, and the Chinese name of the coffee is still 咖啡 (kāfēi), as to how it was introduced the first time almost 200 years ago. Not just coffee, other words that came in at that time, such as 三明治（ (sandwich), ），起司（ (cheese), 巴士（ (bus), 比基尼（ (bikini), 维他命（ (vitamin), ），all have already become a part of Chinese people's life; no one would consider them as loan words anymore. These foreign words symbolize the progress of the participation of Chinese history into globalization, which by the time was driven by the political and power system, symbolizing a new way of life mixed with East and West, and yet they have been widely accepted and are usually unrecognizable as loan words.

Developments and changes of Online globalization and loan words in the 21st century: new forms and new characters for loan words

As the pace of history has stepped into the 21st century, the information age has caused a structural shift in foreign languages, from historical and political, power-driven to information-driven. The Internet, as the central infrastructure of the 21st-century globalization, provides new ways of creating and disseminating loan words. Online platforms and social media have become new guides for loan words, and young people became the primary dominants of these online loan words.

"As of 2017, the number of Internet users in China reached 772 million, of which 97.5% used mobile phones, and the group aged 10 to 39 accounted for 73.0% of the total netizens. The netizens in the 20-29 age group accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 30.0%.’" (SGO, 2006: 119)

"Among the people with a foreign-language learning experience in Mainland China, as many as 93.8% had studied English, 7.1% Russian, and 2.5% Japanese, while only 0.3% of respondents reported learning any other foreign language.  English had been studied by an overwhelming majority of foreign-language learners in different regions of China." (SGO, 2006: 119)

We can see from the above citations that China's network usage rate and English penetration rate have increased significantly in the last few decades, which makes China capable of accepting new loan words ​​in the network environment and make local modifications on these loan words ​​to create new forms of foreign languages. Famous loan words, such as 狗带 (go die) or 'skr', have become detached from the original English meaning in the Chinese context and become a unique loan language in Chinese. English has become an international language under the development of globalization. However, this international language has gradually been localized in the process of continuous internationalization. For example, in China, new foreign words ​​are already localized by Chinese, which becomes difficult to identify for native English speakers.

A specific case: skr

The word’s definition of the word 'skr' in the urban dictionary is as follows: '"Common reaction to when someone suggests something wholly ludicrous and ridiculous, that is generally a bad idea."’ In 2018, this word became popular in China all of a sudden. However, it was not popular because of its original meaning; this vocabulary first became popular in China because a pop singer used the word in a music program to indicate how the tire rubbed on the ground. Then, because the pronunciation of skr is very similar to the pronunciation of the preposition "是个 (is)" in Chinese, a series of other usages have been derived. Phrases such as 气skr个人, ，我可真srk小机灵鬼 became popular and were widely used by young people. The memes associated with these phrases were also virally spread across the web.

‘"‘Memes, just like Mark Zuckerberg’s status updates, do not need to be read in order to be seen and understood as denotationally and informationally meaningful; their use and re-use appear to be governed by the “phatic” and “emblematic” functions often seen as of secondary nature in discourse-analytic literature.’" ’

The memes associated with these phrases are also virally spread across the web, and from the above, we can refer to the fact that most of these memes have no substantial meaning under an online conversation, and young people are just using these memes to show that they follow the trends.

What is more, these new loan words also cause social and economic effects, according to Appadurai (1996), globalization is always tied with global commodification, in this case, many merchants use these famous foreign words in their advertisements to attract customers' attention. Many clothes and accessories begin to add patterns and logos of these loan words to attract young customers to buy their products. A decorative card with the skr logo has more than 1,000 monthly sales on a Chinese shopping site, which is a sign that many young people are proving they are cool and trendy by this kind of consumption, and it also becomes a symbol of identity. However, these new loan words are only popular among young people, most of the elderly people don’t understand the meaning of these new loan words. These words, they have not yet fully integrated into the Chinese language, even for young people, they would only use these words when communicating online, they are not visible in formal occasions. However, through the colonial examples discussed above, we have the reason to believe that these new loan words ​​may also become a part of the Chinese people’s lives in the future.

A decorative card with the skr logo has more than 1,000 monthly sales on a Chinese shopping site, which is a sign that many young people are proving they are cool and trendy by this kind of consumption, and it also becomes a symbol of identity.

From the case of skr, we can sum up several characteristics of the new foreign language loans in the 21st century: first of all, they are spreading online, mostly used by young people, elderly people do not understand their meanings of them. Second, these words mainly stay in the online sphere; they are not considered as a formal language and thus are not being used in any official occasions. Third, these new loan words created their new meaning out of the original meanings from English; it is a mix of English and Chinese language. Therefore, these words are meaningful only in the Chinese context. Finally, these words are tied closely to commodification, many peripheral products, such as clothes and jewelry, are trendy and top-rated among young people because they represents a trend and a state of mind that keeps pace with the times.

Conclusion

By analyzing and citing the foreign words that were introduced into Chinese from English in two different periods in history, we can see that the similarities between these two periods are that they are both tied tightly to commodification and consumption and that they are both a sign for identity construction. On the other hand, these two types of loan words are differentiating from each other, their infrastructures are different, and the ways of disseminating are also different, the first one being mainly one is passive, the second one being active. What's more, the loan words that came in during the colonial time have already become a part of the Chinese daily language and people of any generation know their meanings of them and are able to use them. However, the loan words that came in during the last few years are now only being used by young people in informal contexts, they are the candidates of being truly integrated into the Chinese language, but that process will still take some times.

All in all, through loan words, we can see the process of China being first passively involved in the process of globalization and gradually growing into a more active role leading to new dynamics in the globalization process in the past two centuries. LAs a great reference, loan words ​​have given us a vivid example of linguistic globalization.

References:

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, United States: University of Minnesota Press.

Blommaert, J., & Varis, P. (2015). Enoughness, accent and light communities: Essays on contemporary identities. Tilburg University.

Miao, R. (2005). Loanword Adaptation in Mandarin Chinese: Perceptual, Phonological and Sociolinguistic Factors. Doctorate of Philosophy in Linguistics. Stony Brook University.

SGO (Steering Group Office for Survey of Language Situation in China). 2006. Zhongguo Yuyan Wenzi Shiyong Qingkuang Diaocha Ziliao [Findings and Documents of Survey of Language Situation in China]. Beijing: Language Press.

Su, D., & Li, Y. (2018). Characteristics of Network Catch Words from the Perspective of Sociolinguistics. School of Foreign Languages, Central South University.

Yan, Y. and Deng, T. (2009). On Chinese Loan Words from the English Language. Yangzhou Vocational College of Environment and Resources.

粤海风. (2006). 咖啡馆:上海二十世纪初的现代性想象空间.