1. Introduction

1.1Research background

Because of the differences between Chinese and Western culture and traditional thinking patterns, Chinese people always find a common phenomenon which is called negative transfer during the English language learning process. Negative transfer means that something you have learned in one context easily interferes to your study of your second language learning. And therefore, in a certain stage of the acquisition of English, it is common for English learners to use English expression with some Chinese features, named Chinglish. Chinglish, which is combined from the words CHIN-ESE and EN-GLISH, is just that, Chinese English, a form of Pidgin English spoken and written by native Chinese speakers. In a word, Chinglish is a kind of non-standard English.

Chinglish is that misshapen, hybrid language that is neither English nor Chinese and that is described as "English with Chinese characteristics" by Joan Pinkham.The click-clack of an Underwood typewriter was a familiar sound to Joan Pinkham#8217;s ears growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. in the 1940s. The daughter of Anne Terry White, who authored more than a dozen non-fiction books for young adults and translated several others from Russian to English in the 1950s and 1960s, Joan Pinkham learned to love languages at an early age. She studied French at university, earning a BA from Barnard College in 1950 and then an MA from Middlebury College two years later.

Although she had no formal academic training as a translator #8211; translation programs being extremely rare in the 1950s, particularly in the United States #8211; Joan honed her skills while working as a bilingual secretary at the United Nations after graduating from Middlebury. She studied the bilingual documents that inevitably landed on her desk, did some informal translation from time to time and also, on her own, read any relevant books she could find, putting all this into practice by translating Maupassant in her spare time and then comparing her translations with the published versions.

This article is a case study and reading response to the book The Translator#8217;s Guide to Chinglish written by Joan Pinkham. In this book, analysis on Chinglish was conducted from two perspectives: unnecessary words and sentence structures. It is hoped that the discussion on Chinglish will improve Chinese students#8217; translation and writing abilities in English.

1.2 Need for the study

Language is the dress of thought. Chinglish is the misuse of Standard English, and it is contrary to English rules and cultures in English speaking countries. The Chinese adopt a thinking pattern of their own culture while the Englishmen adopt another, which makes a profound impact on each language. With the rapid development of foreign trade, this problem will influence the effective cross-cultural communication. So it is necessary for us to do some research about this problem in order to find some ways to solve it.

In the book ”The Translator's Guide to Chinglish#8217;, the author systematically examines the common errors in English written by Chinese. She classifies the errors into different categories and gives a large number of examples collected from the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and important official documents translated by Chinese, as well as articles from English newspapers and journals in China. The author analyses each example critically. And exercises are attached to each chapter, with proposed revisions. This is a valuable reference book for Chinese learners of English and translators working from Chinese into English.