中式英语之鉴 Chapter 2

我母静恒

Reading Time: 1 hour
Reading Task: Chapter 2
Summary of the content:
This chapter focuses on unnecessary modifiers.
1.Redundant modifiers.
First, there are some obvious redundancies, which are mainly caused by an inaccurate understanding of the meaning of the words, for example, "valuable treasure", treasure wouldn't be treasure if it wasn't valuable, so valuable is redundant here.
The second is the redundancy of the adverbs of time. English tenses are mainly reflected in the tense of the verb, for example, "I went to Changsha" indicates that I have been to Changsha before and there is no need to add such modifiers such as “previously”.
Then there are words like "vast" which indicate a large number. Chinese prefers to use words like "大量" and "许多" to indicate plurality, whereas in English, plurality is mostly reflected in the s at the end of a noun, with no need for extra modifiers.
2.Self-evidence modifiers
This type of redundancy is actually similar to the first type of inaccurate understanding of the meaning of a word, such as "national economy", where economy is used to refer to the national economy, so national is redundant. This is a mistake because it provides information that is known to be self-evident, which is implicit in the noun it modifies.
3.Intensifiers
I think this is most common in Chinglish. Chinese people often like to use adverbs of degree to emphasize the impact and seriousness of something, but this is redundant and even counterproductive in English, mainly in two ways:
The first is intensifiers with weak words, which is often caused by the users' lack of vocabulary. There are all kinds of words with similar meanings in English, from weak to strong, but the users don't know the strong version of such words, so they can only add adverbs of degree such as “extremely” to weak words as poor compensation.
Then there are intensifiers with strong words, just like the Chinese saying "画蛇添足", in which the original expression is already able to highlight the importance or seriousness of the matter, but the modifier is added redundantly. For example, in "serious chaos", chaos is already very strong in English, and the deliberate emphasis on serious is counterproductive, weakening the strength of chaos. The frequent use of these words has weakened the effectiveness of the nouns and adjectives they modify, and the bundling of words expressing degree with adjectives and nouns has become a cliche.
4.Qualifiers
The use of these words is determined on context. For example, in some scientific and technical genres, in order to show rigor and accuracy, authors often use words like “relatively” to indicate hesitancy, indecisiveness, or what we often call hedging.
Often, however, the use of such words gives the impression of damming with faint praise, as in the case of "quite important", where important already emphasizes the importance of the thing, and the addition of "quite" makes the reader wonder if the thing is really important.
5.Cliche
The fifth category is cliche, which overlaps with the four already mentioned, but here the main emphasis is on the frequent use of these modifiers, which makes them lose their persuasion and exhaust the readers in the first page. In order to keep things fresh, we need to consciously use expressions in our writing that have not yet become cliche, such as “determined” instead of “resolute”.

So how do we judge and modify these modifiers? As with the treatment of nouns and verbs in Chapter 1, it is important to look at them on a case-by-case basis. For pure redundant such as “new innovations”, we have to delete them without hesitation, while for other types of modifiers, we have to analyze the specific context to determine whether we need such an expression and think twice before we act.

Evaluation:
1) The author cites a large number of experts’ works to enhance the academic nature of the article. The content quoted by the authors is very professional yet easy to understand. For example, H. W. Fowler "Constant association with an intensifying adjective deprives a noun of the power of standing on its own legs”, using the technique of anthropomorphism, which vividly reflects the harmful effects of frequent use of intensifying adjective.
2) The article is very logical and organized, which makes it easy for readers to grasp the structure of the article and then better understand the content. In addition, the language is simple and fluent, taking into account the needs of the audience, and seldom uses difficult vocabulary, which makes the readers have the desire to read on.
3) The author's writing style is very humorous and witty, as evidenced by her wordplay and quotations from her writings. For example, "At last they degenerate into familiar background noises, like the Beijing street sounds that accompany a cyclist stream of thought without intruding upon it", which takes the reader's cultural background into account, humorously conveys that the repeated use of modifiers makes them grow fainter.

Reflection:
Shame, empathy, challenge.
The redundancy of modifiers mentioned in this chapter is also a major problem in my writing. Due to my lack of vocabulary and inertia in using Chinese, I often use meaningless modifiers to make my writing look richer, not realizing that it makes my writing look even paler.
As I say this, I have already made a lot of such redundancies above. When I speak Chinese, I always like to say "十分" and "非常" as if I can't express myself otherwise, which makes me feel ashamed of myself, and I also feel that there is a long way to go in converting my Chinglish to English.
How to enrich our vocabulary in order to accumulate appropriate expressions, and how to change our inertia in Chinese and learn to think in English and express ourselves in English, are the two major challenges we are facing.