Li Wei*
New Chinglish and the Post-Multilingualism
challenge: Translanguaging ELF in China
新中式英语和后多语主义的挑战：超语行动在中国
DOI 10.1515/jelf-2016-0001
Abstract: Building on the extensive ELF research that aims to reconceptualise
English as a resource that can be appropriated and exploited without alle-
giance to its historically native speakers, this article explores the issue of
English in China by examining New Chinglish that has been created and
shared by a new generation of Chinese speakers of English in China and
spread through the new media. This new form of English has distinctive
Chinese characteristics and serves a variety of communicative, social and
political purposes in response to the Post-Multilingual ism challenges in
China and beyond. I approach New Chingl ish from a Transl anguaging per-
spective, a theoretical perspective that is intended to raise fundamental ques-
tions about the validity of conventional views of language and communication
and to contribute to the understanding of the Post-Multilingualism challenges
that we face in the twenty-first century.
Keywords: New Chinglish, ELF, China, Translanguaging, Post-Multilingualism
摘要: 近年来英语作 为共同语的研究将语言当作一种资源看待，认为英语是可以
为非母语 者利用，成为他们拥有的资源。本文在此基础上，对 “新中式英语” 加
以系统分 析。“新中式英语” 是中
国新一代英语使用者通过新媒 体创造、传播和
共享的语 言变体。这种新的英语形式具有鲜明的中国特色，并以 应对中国以及
世界面临 的 “后多语挑战” 及多种交际、社会和政治目的。本文从 “超语行动”
概念出发，对 “新中式英语” 进行
分析。作 为一种新的理论框架，“超语行动” 对
传统的语 言和交流的概念，及我们在21世纪面临的 “后多语挑战”，提出了一系
列新的问 题。
关键词: 新中 式英语, 英语作为共同语, 中国, 英语作为共同语, 后多语主义
*Corresponding author: Li Wei, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, 20
Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK, E-mail: li.wei@ucl.ac.uk
JELF 2016; 5(1): 1–25
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1 Introduction
The global expansion of English as a ve hicular language for i nternat ional
and intercultural communication has fundamentally challenged the ideology
of native-spea kerism. English is no longer owned solely by those of the
Anglo-Saxon heritage b ut shared by bilingual and multilingual language
users all over the world in different locations and for different pur poses. In
the m eantime, the notion o f lingua franca has also changed from being a
simplified and substandard learner or contact variety of language to a fluid
and dynamic form of linguistic creativity whose meaning is negotiated in
real-life social interaction as opposed to being given and stable (e. g.,
Kirkpatrick 2010; Seidlhofer 2011; Widdowson 2015; Jenkins 2015; and many
recent articles in this journal). This ne ed to reconceptualise English as a
resource that can be appropriated and exploited without allegiance to its
historically native speakers is particularly evident in the new forms of the
language that have been created by Chinese speakers of English over recent
years. As with ELF, an understanding of this phenomenon raises fundamen-
tal questions about the validity of conventional views of language and
communication. In this article I will explore the issue of English in China
by examining what I call New Chinglish, which has been created and shared
by a new generation of Chinese speakersofEnglishinChinaandspread
through the new media. T his new form of English has distinctive Chinese
characteristics and serves a var iety of communicative, social and political
purposes in response to the Post-Multilingualism challenges in China and
beyond. I will approach New Chinglish from a Translanguaging perspective,
a theoretical perspective that has so far been used mainly in investigating
multilingual practices i n educational cont exts (e. g., Li 2011; Garcia and L i
2014).
The article is structured as follows: It begins with an explication of the
development of Translanguaging as a research perspective, highlighting some
of the recent advances of Translanguaging as a theory of language a nd what
it can contribute to the understanding of the Post-Multilingualism challenges
that we face in the twenty-first century. It then gives a brief overview of the
history of Chinglish. The empirical part o f t he article focuses on examples of
New Chinglish, analyzed from the perspective of Translanguaging. The socio-
political context in which New Chinglish emerges is then discussed. The
theoretical and methodological implications of the analysis are considered
in the concluding section of the article.
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2 Translanguaging: transcending boundaries
The term Translanguaging is in fact Colin Baker’s (2001) English translation
(initially translinguifying) of Cen Williams’ (1994) term trawsieithu, which he
created in Welsh to describe a phenomenon he observed in schools in Wales:
a pedagogical practice where one receives information through the medium of
one language (e. g., English) and gives information through the medium of a
different language (e. g., Welsh). It can be practised by both the student and the
teacher. And Williams argued that it helps to maximise the learner’s bilingual
ability in learning. From the very beginning, Williams made it very clear that
Translanguaging is not an object but a practice and a process. It is a linguistic
practice that involves different languages and language varieties. But more
importantly, it is a process of knowledge construction that makes use of but
goes beyond individual languages (1996). It concerns effective communication,
function rather than form, cognitive activity, as well as language production
(Lewis et al. 2012a, Lewis et al. 2012b).
Over the years, Translanguaging has come to describe purposeful switching of
language mode of input and output in a variety of “bilingual” classrooms (Lewis
et al. 2012a, Lewis et al. 2012b). It is the maximization of the learner’s, and the
teacher’s, linguistic resources in the process of problem solving that attracts
bilingual educators and bilingual education researchers, and has been taken up
more recently by others working in Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
and even English medium instruction (EMI), especially by those who are critical of
the traditional monolingual approaches to CLIL and EMI (e. g., Mazak and Herbas-
Donoso 2015; Adamson and Coulson 2015; and papers in Doiz et al. 2013 and
Fortanet-Gómez 2013). Garcia (2009), for example, talks about Translanguaging as
the process of making meaning, shaping experience, gaining understanding and
knowledge through the use of multiple languages. In Translanguaging, both
languages are used in a dynamic and functionally integrated manner to organize
and mediate mental processes in understanding, speaking, reading, writing, and
not least learning.
Translanguaging as an effective approach to bilingual and other types of
language education has been widely accepted (e. g., Canagarajah 2011; Creese
and Blackledge 2010; Hornberger and Link 2012). But equally important in
Williams’ original conceptualization is the idea that Translanguaging is not
simply a process that goes between languages (cf. code switching, crossing),
but beyond languages, i. e., transcending. So it challenges the conventional
understanding of language boundaries between the culturally and politically
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labelled languages (e. g., English, Chinese). With its emphasis on meaning
making and knowledge construction, it also challenges the boundaries between
language and other cognitive systems as separately encapsulated systems or
modules (cf. the Modularity of Mind hypothesis; e. g., Fodor 1983). It is these two
aspects of the concept of Translanguaging that have been developed further in
recent years and it is also these aspects that are particularly relevant to the
present discussion of New Chinglish.
Burton-Roberts (2004), who works largely within the paradigm of Generative
Linguistics, points out an inherent problem with logic of the Chomskyan
approach, namely, if Universal Grammar (UG) is supposed to be about all
languages as Chomsky clearly wants it to be, then it cannot be conceptualized
as a natural, biological, genetic endowment, because the particular languages,
as we know them (e. g., Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish), are historically
evolved social conventions; and if UG is about something entirely natural,
biological, or genetic, then it cannot be a theory of actual languages that
human beings use in society. But the main problem with the generative para-
digm seems to be that it sets the discipline of linguistics against the reality of
linguistic diversity, a historical fact that has been further enhanced by the
globalization of contemporary society.
In a very recent article, Otheguy et al. (2015) urge linguists to re-focus their
attention on “idiolect”–a language user’s unique and personal language and a
mental grammar that emerges in interaction with other language users and
enables the person’s use of language. Whilst they recognize the socio-political
motivations for named languages such as English, Arabic, Chinese, French, or
Spanish, they question their value in building a linguistic theory. For Otheguy
et al., a bilingual person’s idiolect would consist of lexical and grammatical
features from different socially and politically defined languages, just as a mono-
lingual’s idiolect would consist of lexical and grammatical features from region-
ally, social class-wise and stylistically differentiated varieties of the same
language. What we call Translanguaging is using one’s idiolect, that is, one’s
linguistic repertoire, without regard for socially and politically defined language
labels or boundaries.
As I explained elsewhere (Li 2011), my idea of Translanguaging builds on
the psycholinguistic notion of languaging, which refers to the process of using
language to gain knowledge, to make sense, to articulate one’s thought, and to
communicate about using language (e. g., Lado 1979; Hall 1996; Smagorinsky
1998; Swain 2006; Maschler 2009). In this process, ‘‘language serves as a vehicle
through which thinking is articulated and transformed into an artifactual
form’’(Swain 2006: 97). It is also connected to Becker’s attempt to move away
from language as a noun or something that has been accomplished to language
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as a verb and an ongoing process, or languaging (Becker 1988: 25; see also
Becker 1991a, Becker 1991b). This notion of languaging has also been invoked as
a central characteristic of the use of English as a lingua franca (e. g., Seidlhofer
2011). It is the problem-solving, knowledge construction and mobilization, and
learning dimensions of the concept of languaging that attracted me.
In adopting a Trans perspective on Languaging, I have three further, specific
questions in mind:
1. Is language a separate and discrete module in the human mind in relation to
other cognitive systems such as memory, attention, emotion, etc.?
2. If the human mind does not divide different languages or between language
and other cognitive systems, should not bilingualism and multilingualism
research be focused on how language users use the multiple linguistic and
cognitive resources available in combination in social interaction rather
than on which and how many languages they know and use?
3. What role do sensory and modality processes play in language learning and
language use?
According to the “Modularity of Mind” (MOM) theory (Fodor 1983), the human
mind consists of a series of innate neural structures, or modules, which are
encapsulated with distinctive information and for distinct functions. Language is
but one module of the human mind. Whilst theoretically plausible, there is ample
neuro-anatomic evidence to suggest that separating language from the rest of the
mind is a futile effort as there is no such thing as a language-only neural network.
The brain areas that are involved in processing language information are also
involved in other, what has traditionally been called “nonverbal” processes.
Furthermore, language processing cannot be wholly independent of auditory
and visual processes, just as cognitive processes such as number processing and
colour categorisation cannot be wholly independent of language. In terms of
multilingual language learners and users, there is increasing evidence that their
language experience and cognitive capacity are closely interconnected and
mutually beneficial. Language, then, is a multisensory and multimodal semiotic
system interconnected with other identifiable but inseparable cognitive systems.
Translanguaging for me means transcending the traditional divides between
language and non-language cognitive and semiotic systems.
In our everyday life in the twenty-first century, even if we were categorised
as “monolingual” in the sense that we use only one of the culturally and
politically named languages in the world (say, English or Chinese), we can
hardly survive a minute without employing multisensory and multimodal
resources. We rarely get a text message or even e-mail these days without
some sort of emoticon, and the language of Emoji – a translanguaged term
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