Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

When I did an internship at a Top 500 international enterprise I was quite amused by how the Chinese employees in the company talked to each other - they freely mixed English words and Chinese grammar, which made them sound like second or third generation immigrants who had not totally inherited their ancestors' mother tongue. But in actuality, many of them had never been abroad.

However I soon became just like them, especially after my boss told me that it was "the corporate culture." I realized that, given that the enterprise stipulated that English and Chinese were its work languages, the weird mix of languages was a compromise between corporate regulations and the employees' mediocre English ability. From a linguistic perspective, the staff were "code-switching" to increase efficiency - English words are used to identify key things such as work procedures and material names; while Chinese grammar is used to create a logical and comprehensible train of thought.

But some people who have no experience in foreign companies do not think so, in particular when they find someone they know keeps mixing English and Chinese even in their daily life. Bitter jokes and skits, which have gone viral, were manufactured to mock these "code-switchers," who are seen as "pretentious and aloof" and consider the "language" a cachet of intellectual refinement and a marker of social status.

As for some linguists, sociologists and educators, they see a gloomy picture and have expressed concern. Many of them argue that code-switching confounds people through the disorderly use of words and expressions of different languages. Li Rulong, a professor at Xiamen University, said that this mess of words and expressions have "polluted" Chinese, whose "purity" is at risk.

Worries about the purity of Chinese have piqued the attention of policymakers. China's media watchdog issued a regulation last year, banning all audio, TV programs and commercials from using "nonstandard expressions of Chinese," especially some newly-created words and phrases by netizens.

Before discussing whether the "purity of a language" should be defended, the proposition itself should be questioned. As James D. Nicoll, a well-known Canadian writer, argues, "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle through their pockets for new vocabulary."

Nicoll's argument was rough, but made the point that as long as there is contact between humans, languages borrow words and exchange expressions with each another every minute. As for robust languages such as English and Chinese, their desire for variety, be it reflected in words, grammar or expressions, has always been stronger than their desire to isolate themselves. This can be seen in countries such as India, which has both Hindi and English as official languages despite Britain's centuries of colonialism.

As for those who are obsessed with the purity of Chinese, strictly speaking, will probably have to learn how to read, write and speak in classical Chinese, because contemporary Chinese is rife with foreign elements. For example, 70 percent of social sciences terms were borrowed from Japanese.

But it must be noted that the evolution of languages is a double helix which integrates the standardization of language use with the diversification of language elements. A rapidly changing language, which has no rules for people to learn and grasp, will be abandoned.

The real purpose of defending the purity of a language is never the language itself. It is manipulated by politics to serve as an approach to fend off the pull of a dominant culture. For instance, after French was replaced by English in international diplomacy, France didn't give up guarding against "the Americanization of French life." Not only did it add a new article to its constitution to confirm French's position as the only official language, but it adopted new laws to prohibit domestic French audio and TV shows from using foreign languages and ordered government documents to be written in French words only. However, years have passed, and time has proven that in the sphere of language use, we have no choice but to bend the rules - the French still prefer using "email" instead of "courrier électronique."

The author is a Global Times reporter. liuzhun@globaltimes.com.cn