English in Hong Kong

Hong Kong EnglishDaria Dayter

HS English in Asia

One country, two systems, three languages

- Territory - 1092 sq.km

- Population - 7,08 million

- 8th greatest trading economy in the world

History of English in Hong Kong

1637 - British trading ships reached Macau and Canton

1755 - All foreign trade is restricted to Canton (Guangzhou)

1740s - first attestations of Chinese speakers of English

After the first Opium War (1839-1842), HK became a colony of the British Empire

Treaty of Nanking 1842Article 50:

All official communications, addressed by the Diplomat and Consular Agents of Her Majesty the Queen to the Chinese Authorities, shall, henceforth, be written in English. They will for the present be accompanied by a Chinese version, but it is understood that in the event of there being any difference of meaning between the English and Chinese text the English Government will hold the sense as expressed in the English text to be the correct sense. This provision is to apply to the Treaty now negotiated, the Chinese text of which has been carefully corrected by the English original.

Teaching English in HK1850s-1930s - English is taught in missionary schools

Educational reforms following riots of 1967: free, compulsory primary and secondary education

Primary education in Cantonese; secondary schools: ‘Anglo-Chinese’ & ‘Chinese Middle schools’

30 June 1997 - Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony

Only 114 English-medium schools

Linguistic situationLanguage Understand Speak Speak - 1983

cantonese 91.5% 91.9% 98.5%

English 68.6% 65.8% 43.3%

Putonghua (Mandarin)

61.9% 55.6% 31.6%

Chinese 7.3% 6.6% not in survey

hakka 7.4% 6.0% 7.5%

Chiu Chau 7.0% 5.2% 9.3%

Fukien 4.2% 4.1% 4.2%

Sze Yap 3.2% 3.3% 6.3%

Shanghainese 3.7% 2.7% 4.1%

Cantonese dialects 3.5% 2.5% 4.7%

Other Chinese dialects

1.5% 1.5% not in survey

Other European languages

1.9% 1.8% not in survey

Others 0.4% 0.3% 3.6%(from Joseph 1997)

data from a language survey project

Spread of English

(from Bolton 2005)

Autonomy of Hong Kong English

Popular discourse: decline of English

vs.

Linguistic discourse: emergence of a new variety of Hong Kong English

How do we know that it is an autonomous variety, not a learner’s language?

a standard and recognizable pattern of pronunciation handed down from one generation to another - ACCENT;

particular words and phrases which spring up usually to express key features of the physical and social environment and which are regarded as peculiar to the variety - VOCABULARY;

a history - a sense that this variety of English is the way it is because of the history of the language community - HISTORY;

a literature written without apology in that variety of English - LITERARY CREATIVITY;

reference works - dictionaries and style guides - which show that people in that language community look to themselves, not some outside authority, to decide what is right and wrong in terms of how they speak and write their English - REFERENCE WORKS.

Butler 1997:106

Reference worksThe Grolier dictionary: World English in an Asian Context

VocabularyLocal context

- Typhoon signals: “The number eight signal will be hoisted soon.”- Film censorship categories: Category III movie, Category III movie star- Sandwich class; sandwich class loan, sandwich class flat

- unlicensed massage parlours- fishball stalls- villas- one-woman brothels- private brothels- outcall services

Taxonomies within specific socioculturaldomains

Semantic opposition- mainland china as excluding Hong Kong- local (= Hong Kong) vs. mainland

“Those local students who were apprehended in Beijing delivering Hong Kong’s donations had to undergo harrowing interrogation before being deported.”

GrammarInternal grammatical variation, stratified by style and by class

Zero-subject relatives- This is the student ø did it.- Hong Kong is a small island ø has a large population.- There was a fire ø broke out.

Reduced relatives with a relative marker- This is the student who admitted last year.

StE: This is the student admitted last year.

Where with abstract head nouns- This is a basis where we can go on.- This is a theory where transformations are used.

Copula/auxiliary be dropping- He walking in the park.

Irregular use of articles

Grammar

“Do not feed the living creature” (a sign in a park)“Be careful of the pickpocket” (a sign at a train station)

Reduction in morphosyntactic distinctions- I am very boring in lectures.- Have you try?- She like to go there.

Irregularity in passivization- The bus was appeared around the corner.- Then she had to promote to Accountant One.- I’ve been tried hard to do that.- You didn’t expect the timetable would be that pack.- If you want to go there backpacked ...

PhonologyMonophthongs

Words HKE vowel RP vowel

heat - hit /i/ /i:/ - /ɪ/

head - had /ɛ/ /e/ - /æ/

hoot - hood /u/ /u:/ - /ʊ/

caught - cot /ɔ/ /ɔ:/ - /ɒ/

- lack of tense/non-tense and long/short distinction

Vowel Examples

[i] heat, hit

[ɛ] bet, bat

[u] hoot, hood

[ɔ] cot, caught

[ɑ] heart

[ʌ] hut

[ɜ] hurt

Inventory of HKE vowels

Diphthongs

Phonology

- contrast [aɪ] - [ʌɪ] tries [tʃwaɪs] twice [tʃwʌɪs]

Consonants- voiced stops and affricates are not truly voiced, but distinguished from the voiceless by the aspiration and greater delay in voice onset time of the voiceless ones.pea /p/ - bee /b/- all fricatives are voiceless- only 4 fricatives (instead of 8 in RP) seal [sil] - zeal [sil], race [ɹeɪs] - raze [ɹeɪs] pressure [pɹɛʃə] - pleasure [plɛʃə] thin [θin] - clothe [kloʊθ] this [dis], brother [bɹʌdə]

- no /v/, only /w/ and /f/ vine [waɪn], leave [lif]

- /n/ and /l/ appear to be interchangeable at the syllable onset need [ni:d], [li:d]

PhonologyConsonants

- /r/ is realized as alveolar approximant /ɹ/

- for a minority of speakers, /r/ is realized as /w/ in all contexts. For a majority, this distinction is neutralized only if /r/ is preceded by another consonant:

tries [tʃwaɪs] twice [tʃwʌɪs]

- The cluster /kw/ does not occur before rounded vowels: quote [koʊt] quit [kwit]

Distribution

- A constraint against syllable rimes consisting of sequence diphthong + stop (oral or nasal): awoke [əwʊk] line [laɪ] rain [ɹɪŋ]

Hong Kong Englishaudioaudio

Bolton, Kingsley, ed. 2005. Hong Kong English: Autonomy and creativity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Bolton, Kingsley and Helen Kwok. 1990. “The dynamics of hong Kong accent: Social identity and sociolinguistic description.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 1(1): 147-172.

Joseph, J.E. 1997. “The Tao of identity in heteroglossic Hong Kong.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 143: 15-31.

Luke, Kang-kwong and Jack C. richards. 1983. “English in Hong Kong: functions and status.” English Worldwide 3(1): 47-64.

Wright, Sue and Helen Kelly-Holmes, eds. 1997. One country, two systems, three languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.