An Introduction to New Zealand English

New Zealand English is the variety of English spoken and written by most English-speaking New Zealanders. As a stan-dard variety of English, New Zealand English possesses distinct phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features. These fea-tures are briefly introduced and discussed based on previous literature on New Zealand English. The linguistic features of New Zea-land English reflect the history and culture of New Zealand. Having a good understanding of the linguistic features of New ZealandEnglish, on the one hand, could help Chinese EFL(English as a foreign language) learners to become more competent interculturalcommunicators; on the other hand, could facilitate Chinese EFL learners' understanding of English as a global language and itsvariation.