Book Note 7 on《中式英语之鉴》

悦悦悦

Book Note 7 on《中式英语之鉴》:
Reader: 赵悦
Reading Time: 2天
Reading Task: Chapter13
Summary of the Content:
Chapter 13 serves as a comprehensive recap of the key issues in Chinglish identified throughout the book and reinforces the core strategies to address them. The author, Joan Pinkham, emphasizes that Chinglish arises primarily from two sources: direct translation of Chinese structures into English and unnecessary wordiness caused by over-abundant modifiers or redundant expressions rooted in Chinese political and formal writing conventions.
Key Problems Highlighted:
Redundancy & Wordiness: E.g., “mutual cooperation” (redundant “mutual”), “enter into a contract” (unnecessary “into”), or overuse of “carry out”, “make”, “conduct” as empty verbs.
Literal Translation: E.g., “搞经济建设” → “engage in economic construction” (better: “build the economy”), where Chinese syntactic patterns (e.g., “verb + object” structures) mislead English phrasing.
Ineffective Collocations: Misuse of prepositions (e.g., “depend on” vs. “depend to”), verb-noun mismatches (e.g., “raise standards” vs. incorrect “raise levels”), or awkward adjective-noun pairs (e.g., “important key measures”).
Stylistic Infelicities: Over-formality (“in view of the fact that” instead of “since”) and lack of idiomatic fluency (“give full play to one’s initiative” is better as “let people use their initiative”).
Solutions Proposed:
Edit for conciseness: Remove redundant words/phrases (e.g., delete “mutual” in “mutual cooperation” since “cooperation” implies mutuality).
Prioritize idiomatic expressions: Replace literal translations with natural English equivalents (e.g., “深化改革” → “deepen reforms” instead of “strengthen the depth of reforms”).
Adopt English thinking patterns: Recognize that English values brevity, directness, and active voice (e.g., “It is necessary for us to...” → “We should...”).
Use authentic reference materials: Study native English texts (e.g., The Economist, BBC News) to internalize correct collocations and structures.
Evaluation:
Practical and Systematic: Pinkham’s focus on concrete examples (with side-by-side Chinglish vs. revised English) makes the advice actionable. Learners can directly apply “delete unnecessary words”, “replace empty verbs”, or “simplify complex structures” as editing checklists.
Root Cause Analysis: By linking Chinglish to cross-linguistic (thinking in Chinese first, then translating), the book addresses the problem at its source rather than just treating symptoms. This helps learners develop long-term sensitivity to English stylistic norms.
Relevance to Academic/Professional Writing: The examples heavily draw from official documents, academic papers, and political texts ---- contexts where Chinglish most commonly persists. This makes the book invaluable for students, translators, and professionals in formal writing fields.
Reflection:
As a learner who often struggles with over-explaining ideas (a habit from Chinese composition), this chapter reinforced the importance of “less is more” in English writing. I realized my tendency to add “modifiers out of habit” ---- e.g., writing “make a careful analysis” instead of simply “analyze” ---- stemmed from Chinese’s preference for elaborate phrasing.
This chapter solidified The Awkward English as more than a grammar book; it’s a guide to bridging cross-cultural communication gaps. By addressing both linguistic structures and cognitive habits, Pinkham equips learners to write English that sounds not just “correct”, but natural and confident.