Language ideologies

Language ideologies, as a field of inquiry, can be traced to Michael Silverstein, who first emphasised the importance of language beliefs in shaping language development. He defined language ideology as ‘sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalisation or justification of perceived language structure or use’ (Silverstein, Reference Silverstein, Clyne, Hanks and Hofbauer1979: 193). To highlight the manifold interpretations of language and ideology, this study uses the plural language ideologies. Language ideologies are, in Kroskrity's (Reference Kroskrity, Jaspers, Östman and Verschueren2010) words, socially, culturally and historically constructed belief systems about language structure (linguistic forms) and use (the function, role or status of a language in society). They perform like ‘an interpretive filter in the relationship of language and society’, mediating between ‘social structures and forms of talk’ (Woolard & Schieffelin, Reference Woolard and Schieffelin1994: 55-62). In other words, linguistic practices, language ideologies and social structures are interconnected (McGroarty, Reference McGroarty, Hornberger and McKay2010). Social structures have the potential to shape language ideologies, which, in turn, influence linguistic practices within society. Language practices contribute to (re)producing and, on occasion, contesting and transforming language ideologies and thus also social structure. Research on language ideologies can facilitate understanding of the interaction or mutual constitution of language and society, while recognition of the multiplicity of language ideologies allows exploring the potential conflicts, struggles and contestations among divergent ideologies within shared social spaces (Kroskrity, Reference Kroskrity, Jaspers, Östman and Verschueren2010).

Ideologies of English in China

In line with the concept of language ideologies, ideologies of English concerns systematic assumptions and beliefs about English, including its role and function in a particular society and the linguistic forms and structures valued in that society. Within the context of China, Xiong and Qian (Reference Xiong and Qian2012) identified three aspects of ideological discourses of English: dominant ideologies, counterhegemonic ideologies and popular ideologies. Dominant ideologies are ideological constructions employed by the ruling classes or dominant groups to deploy, legitimate and promote their political-economic interests. Manipulated by the groups in power, dominant ideologies tend to assume hegemonic positions in society, coercing the general public to observe them. In China, the ruling class or the dominant group is usually identified as the nation-state or the government authorities and the apparatuses they possess to manage the nation-state. Counterhegemonic ideologies oppose the dominant ones. Indeed, they are formed precisely to challenge and contest the ideologies in hegemonic positions and the interests they serve. Popular ideologies refer to the ideological beliefs or perceptions held by the general public. They may align with dominant ideologies but are constructed from the perspective of ‘enhancing individual opportunities’, rather than ‘serving the state's interests’ (Xiong & Qian, Reference Xiong and Qian2012: 77).

Research in China has largely focused on uncovering the dominant ideologies of English legitimated in official discourse. Research has revealed that the role and status of English in China is closely connected to the nation-state's political and economic agenda (Adamson, Reference Adamson2004; Gao, Reference Gao2012). Since the implementation of reform and open-door policy, China's leadership has adopted a pragmatic or utilitarian philosophy towards nation-building, which prioritises socialist modernisation through economic development. This approach recognises western science and investments as crucial, and English is pivotal to accessing to these resources (He & Li, Reference He and Li2009; Hu, Reference Hu2005). Consequently, English has been actively promoted in Chinese education systems and remained so into the 21^st century (Adamson, Reference Adamson2004; Jiang, Reference Jiang2003; Wang, Reference Wang2015).

With the support of the nation-state, English is a compulsory course from primary school to university and a mandatory subject in College Entrance Examinations (Gaokao). It is also legitimised in a series of high-stakes English proficiency tests, such as the Test for English Majors (TEM Band 4 and 8), College English Test (CET Band 4 and 6) for non-English majors, and Public English Tests (PET) for the general public. Witnessing the fervour for English across China, scholars have begun to challenge its influence on Chinese language and culture. For example, Niu and Wolff (Reference Niu and Wolff2003) warned of a disguised form of linguistic imperialism amid the craze for English and English education. Guo and Beckett (Reference Guo, Beckett, Sung and Pederson2012) exposed the hegemonic role of English in gatekeeping, cultural control and local knowledge construction in China.

However, it is no longer realistic to ‘deport’ English from China in the face of intensifying globalisation and China's ever-deepening integration into the global economy. Some identify the hegemony of English in privileging native norms and cultures, and advocate China English as an alternative to express local identity and culture (Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick2007; Wei & Fei, Reference Wei and Fei2003; Xu, Reference Xu2010). It is argued that China English allows ‘non-native users’ linguistic and cultural rights to appropriate English for local and creative expression’ (Xiong & Qian, Reference Xiong and Qian2012: 78). Some advocate moving further away from teaching and learning Standard English to ELF because English is more likely to be used by Chinese people for international communication with both native and non-native speakers in the future (Fang, Reference Fang, Xu, He and Deterding2017a; Fang & Ren, Reference Fang and Ren2018; Wen, Reference Wen, Kirkpatrick and Sussex2012).

So far, the reviews of dominant and counterhegemonic ideologies of English have been mainly macro-level analyses of official and academic discourses. Few studies have discussed how the populace at the micro-level makes sense of these ideological imperatives. Members of the general public have their own private agendas in learning English, which may align with the dominant ideologies if their interests agree with of the nation-state. However, if discrepancies occur, there might also be tensions, conflicts, struggles and even actions of resistance, as counterhegemonic ideologies predict (Moody, Reference Moody and Chapelle2013). There are some language attitudes investigations concerning the ideologies of English in popular discourse. For instance, Pan and Block (Reference Pan and Block2011) studied university students’ understandings of the status of English, expectations for English learning and practices of English teaching and learning in China. Wang (Reference Wang2015) examined both teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards China English. These studies revealed that English language learners in China generally recognise the status of English as an international language but prefer native English standards and have low recognition of China English (see also Fang, Reference Fang2017b; Yang & Zhang, Reference Yang and Zhang2015).

However, most such studies have focused on university English teachers and learners. More studies are needed to examine the ideological discourses among the general public not necessarily subjected to educational mechanisms. This study, therefore, approaches this issue with naturally occurring data from Chinese netizens. By viewing online discourses as discourses of popular culture, we follow Moody (Reference Moody and Chapelle2013) and examine netizens’ language ideology from both the performative and affiliative channels. According to Moody (Reference Moody and Chapelle2013: 2), whereas ‘the performative channel examines language ideologies that are related to pop culture performances, the affiliative channel examines fan reaction to language used in popular culture’ (Emphasis in original). To be specific, this study addresses three research questions:

1. 1. What ideological discourses on English do Chinese netizens have?

2. 2. Why do Chinese netizens have these ideological constructions?

3. 3. How are these ideologies of English related to the ideologies found in official and academic discourses?

Data collection

Data collect captured netizens’ comments on the popular blogger's (Houson猴姆) post mentioned in the introduction (http://www.weibo.com/1258256457/zpnF9jBdP). The blogger posted a 2'26-minute-long video clip of a news report that aired on CCTV 13 on the morning of March 26, 2013. The report was about a Chinese CCTV reporter's interview with a Zambian official before the 5^th BRICS summit to be held the next day in South Africa. In the whole interview, the reporter asked the official only three questions in English about his opinions on China's development and China's role in the five BRICS organisation:

1. 1. Andrew, what's your view about the five BRICS countries?

   /'ændru:↓'wɒts 'jɔː 'vjuː ‘ə'baʊt ‘ðə- ‘faɪv ‘brɪks 'kʌntrɪz? ↓/

2. 2. How do you see China’s development in recently years?

   /'haʊ 'duː ’juː ‘sɪː ‘tʃaɪnə s- ‘de've’ləp’mənt ‘in 'rɪː’snt’lɪ ‘jɪəz? ↓/

3. 3. How do you see the relationship between Zambia and China in development?

   /'haʊ 'duː 'juː 'sɪː 'ðə- 'rɪ'leɪʃn'ʃɪpə- ‘bɪ'twiːn ‘zæmbijia 'ænd 'tʃaɪnə in 'de've’ləp’mənt? ↓/

The reporter used English with a strong Chinese dialect-like accent (e.g. the lengthened pronunciation of ‘the’ as /'ðə-/ in the transcript) and other Chinese features, such as syllable-timing (e.g. a stress at the start of each word) and literal translation of Chinese expressions (e.g. translating ’你怎么看’ (what do you think) as ‘how do you see’).

In this post, the blogger joked about the reporter's Chinese-accented English (and the Zambian official's African English as well):

The post quickly drew a huge number of netizens. It was followed 7,000 times (including 6,000 with comments) the day it was posted and 29,745 times (including 18,905 with comments) in a month. Discussions, comments and even longer articles reviewing these comments popped up on various webpages during that month, and many can still be seen today. We selected the first 300 of 941 pages for analysis in this study but we browsed all the comments on the blog to make sure that the later comments were similar to the previous ones, and nothing new emerged. The 300 pages contained 5,975 comments (listed as comments 1-5,975 in the database), sufficient to reveal the complexities of English ideologies in the popular discourse and allow for generalisations to a certain degree.

Data analysis

The 5,975 comments were analysed by adopting a paradigmatic approach to produce ‘taxonomies and categories out of the common elements across the database’ (Polkinghorne, Reference Polkinghorne, Hatch and Wisniewski1995: 5) through repeated readings of the data. The main purpose of the analysis was to explore these Chinese netizens’ ideological discourses on English and to relate these popular ideologies to those promoted in the official and academic discourses to see how the latter were (re)produced, negotiated and even contested in the popular discourse. We first reviewed the data to gain a general picture of all comments on the event and eliminate irrelevant comments (76) and comments that did not reveal the followers’ attitudinal evaluations (1,333).

The other 4,566 comments were read again to derive preliminary ‘taxonomies and categories’ for coding (ibid.). In this phase, the comments were roughly grouped into two categories according to the attitudes they expressed: negative or positive towards the reporter's use of English in the interview. A small number of comments evaluated only the African official (16), and some were undecided due to a lack of sufficient information (189). In this study, only the comments in two categories with clear attitudinal judgments (4,361) were selected for further analysis. In the third reading, these comments were coded according to the categories and taxonomies generated in the second phase while allowing new themes to emerge. After the preliminary categorisation and coding, a fourth reading was carried out to interpret the popular ideological discourses. The categories and taxonomies identified were reiteratively compared, contrasted and related to the ideological constructions promoted in the official and academic discourses.

Negative comments on the reporter's English

Our analysis reveals that the netizens’ comments are overwhelmingly negative, with 3,255 of 4,566 (71.3%) expressing disapproval of the CCTV reporter's English. Scrutiny of the reasons netizens give to justify their negative evaluations show that few cite communicativeness as a criterion in evaluating the reporter's English. Only five explicitly mention that they cannot understand the reporter, while another four infer from the interviewee's facial expression that he might not understand the reporter. It seems that communication is not an important standard to consider in evaluating English in China. Instead, deviations from native English standards and disgrace to the Chinese CCTV reporter's identity are repeatedly stressed as two major reasons for censuring of the reporter's English and questioning of his qualifications as a CCTV reporter.

Of the 3,255 negative comments, 1,053 take non-standardness or incorrectness as reasons for their criticising the reporter's English, illustrated as follows:

The comments reveal that the netizens seem to find fault with everything the reporter says. According to them, his English is non-standard (e.g.1), his pronunciation is incorrect (e.g.2), he has problems with lexicogrammar (e.g.3), and directly addressing the official by his first name is inappropriate from the perspective of politeness (e.g.4). It is interesting to note that these netizens seem to have pre-defined standards for judging the reporter's English. Any instance of English usage deviating from the standards they upheld is seen as incorrect, and the netizens seldom question the appropriateness of the standards. For instance, when explaining why the African official should not be directly addressed by his first name, Andrew, the netizens reason that:

In this case, how to address a person, according to this netizen, is decided by the rule that ‘to address somebody older than you, you should call him Mr. instead of his first name’. The rule is pre-determined and applicable to all contexts regardless of the actual communicating situation. We know that in this specific linguistic episode, how the official was addressed depended on many factors. Perhaps everyone there was addressed by their first names. Perhaps the official asked the reporter to call him Andrew before the interview. Perhaps the reporter addressed the official by his first name to build rapport. It is also possible that the official did not consider this to be problematic but instead preferred to be called Andrew. The netizens do not seem to take all these possible situations into consideration but instead criticise the reporter for violating the rule they uphold. The following comments shed some lights on the reasons leading to netizens’ mechanical following of rules for using English.

Although these comments do not explicitly explain how the netizens acquire their standards for judging others’ English, they seem to suggest schools (e.g.6), language teachers (e.g.7) and examinations (e.g.8) as possible sources. They negatively evaluate the reporter's English as it is different from what language teachers teach in schools and English exams test. The officially supported Standard English ideology seems to be largely naturalised in the popular discourse. English different from Standard English is negatively evaluated, regardless of whether it serves communicative purposes. Why does the general public align with the official discourse privileging Standard English over intercultural communication? This question leads to the second theme emerging in these negative comments.

In addition to notions of standardness and correctness, English is found to be connected to China and the Chinese people in far more complicated ways in the netizens’ belief systems. The kind of English spoken is related to personal image and social status – a point mentioned by 1,144 of the 3,255 negative comments.

As e.g.9 shows, English is connected to personal image. To speak English with Chinese characteristics is perceived as shameful and disgraceful, a kept private failing that should not be exposed to others. E.g.10 and e.g.11 further relate English language proficiency with professional qualifications and social status. The comments reveal the expectation that to be a reporter, one needs to have a certain command of English. To work for an organisation with such high social status as CCTV, this is even more imperative. Otherwise, one does not deserve to work as a CCTV reporter.

In addition to being associated with personal image and social status, English is also actively appropriated (1,022 of 3,255) to represent institutional and even national images.

These comments seem to associate a perceived level of English language proficiency with the images of the institution and even the nation-state. However, the English appraised positively in these situations is not English with Chinese characteristics or China English. To the contrary, China English is perceived as damaging the image of the institution (e.g.12) and humiliating the nation in front of the rest of the world (e.g.13). With English associated with national, institutional and individual identities, people's use of English is critically evaluated against their social and professional backgrounds. In this case, the reporter's Chinese-accented English becomes a target of attack. In a sense, the reporter is criticised not due for his English per se but for the mismatch between the way he uses English and the high professional and social status he has as a CCTV reporter, according to these netizens. If he had another job, speaking English with Chinese accent would not be perceived as so problematic (e.g.14). That he speaks English like everyone else despite his high social and professional status (e.g.15) triggers the debate as he is expected to use so-called English as an English-language news reporter. That is the main reason for the critical censure of his English.

It seems those netizens take English as much more than a communication tool. It is effectively regarded as ‘a defining quality of talents’, ‘a sign of distinction’ and ‘the language of social and economic prestige’, as Hu and Alsagoff (Reference Hu and Alsagoff2010: 371) argued. Associating English with social status and upward mobility, in turn, contributes to turning English into a valorised form of cultural capital (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu1991) in China. The netizens seem to be quite clear about this point. To negotiate upward mobility, they actively capitalise on English to gain access to various ‘economic, social, educational and professional opportunities and resources’ (Hu & Alsagoff, Reference Hu and Alsagoff2010: 371). Likewise, the netizens who show affiliation to such discourses aligned with the ideology of using English to differentiate people and construct social stratifications. The case of the reporter goes against the ideological discourses they have reinvested. This, to a certain degree, increases dissatisfaction with his English, as revealed in the following comments.

These two examples reveal that the netizens regard English as a gatekeeper for social and professional upward mobility in China. They take it for granted that when hiring any reporter, CCTV will consider the applicant's English (e.g.16). E.g.17 challenges the reporter's professional competence as a CCTV reporter based on the way he speaks English. The user describes being a CCTV reporter as a job with high social status. To be qualified as a CCTV reporter, one has to use English according to certain norms. Otherwise, one only deserves to work as a floor cleaner. However, given that this person already is a reporter, the only reasonable explanation is that he got the job not based on his competence but through personal connections. These netizens seem to have internalised the ideology of English as a capital and a gatekeeper of social mobility. Within this ideological discourse, they discredit the reporter's Chinese-accented English.

In sum, our analysis of the negative comments reveals the netizens’ alignment with the dominant discourse, particularly in their belief in Standard English norms and conventions and the use of them rather than communicative effectiveness to evaluate the reporter's English language features. In addition, the netizens generally accept English's gatekeeping role in individual, institutional and even national development in China and actively recapitalise on it for social and economic upward mobility. Within such ideological discourses, Chinese-accented English is devalued, and those who speak English with a Chinese accent are negatively evaluated, particularly when their English goes against their professional and social status.

Positive comments on the reporter's English

In contrast to the negative comments discussed, positive ones draw on different ideological discourses to support the reporter's use of English. The comments in this category convey a strong message that these netizens generally recognise the role of English in communication. Among the 1,106 positive comments, 302 foreground communication as the primary concern in evaluating the reporter's English. In line with the concept of English for communication, these comments challenge the ideological constructions underpinning netizens’ negative evaluations of the reporter's English.

These two examples show that positive comments focus more on the use of English as a communication tool. Aligned with the discourse on English for communication, they recognise the Chinese-African interaction as genuinely ‘standard’ English (e.g.18), and accept accents as normal and natural in such authentic communication (e.g.19). To the contrary, these netizens question privileging the idealised native speaker English (e.g.20), particularly when using English to communicate with non-native speakers, as pointed out in e.g.21.

These comments explicitly challenge the relevance of native English norms to communication without the presence of native speakers. In addition, other practices built on the dominant ideologies are also untenable.

E.g.22 points to the necessity to adjust English examinations to include these instances of ELF communication in listening, while e.g.23 directly questions the high status of English in China and the implementation of high-stakes English tests. E.g.24 appeals for fair treatment of the reporter instead of judging him solely on the way he uses English. In other words, the reorientation of English towards communication leads to netizens’ positive evaluations of the reporter and subversion of the dominant ideological constructions of English.

Along with recognition of English for communication, 148 of the total 1,106 positive comments mention the development of English in different places and the uniqueness of English in China.

Both comments justify the use of China English. The first makes a connection between China English and other varieties of English in the world, and the second recognises that this netizen, too, is a China English user and further challenges the existence of any correct English model. In addition to recognising China English, the netizens also promote the reporter's English as a preferable instance of communication for both China and Chinese speakers.

These three examples outline three possible roles for China English in international communication. E.g.27 highlights China English's role as a carrier of Chinese characteristics and the uniqueness of China English in local expressions. E.g.28 recognises the potential of China English to bring China to the world, while e.g.29 stresses its potential to empower Chinese speakers in international communication.

A large number of netizens also perceive China English as familiar and comfortable for Chinese speakers.

In these comments, China English is valued for its closeness to Chinese. In particular, China English is put forward as easily understandable and accessible to the general public (e.g.30). Hearing people speaking China English is like hearing one's own classmates (e.g.31) or a person from the same hometown speaking a local dialect (e.g.32). Unlike the negative comments in which the reporter's China English is perceived as inferior, China English is appreciated in these comments for reducing social distances. Indeed, 458 of the total 1,106 positive comments explicitly mention increased confidence after seeing the video clip of this Chinese-African interaction.

The netizens in e.g.33 and e.g.34 send the message that they previously were ashamed to speak China English due to concerns about the Chineseness of their English. The reporter's use of China English has set a good example for them and restored their confidence in using Chinese-influenced English. These examples are also enlightening for understanding the Chinglish stigma traditionally attached to China English. The analysis reveals that the stigma might result not from China English's inability to serve the communication needs of speakers but from its lack of recognition as symbolic capital for negotiating upward mobility. However, the stigmatisation results in serious consequences for people's confidence in learning and using English. The positive comments may express the netizens’ implicit aspiration to decouple English and socio-economic stratification and to change how English is learnt and used to empower Chinese English users.