Hong Kong English: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Abstract

Hong Kong English (HKE) has been the subject of a growing body of research over the last few decades. This article presents an overview of research into HKE from both linguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. The first section reviews the linguistic features of HKE at phonological, grammatical and lexical levels as documented in the literature. In the second section of the article, the development of HKE as a 'new' variety of English is discussed from a sociolinguistic viewpoint, with a view to addressing the question of in which phase HKE is currently situated according to Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of evolution for New Englishes. A review of the literature suggests that HKE displays a number of phonological, grammatical and lexical features which makes HKE distinguishable from other varieties of English, with the majority of these features attributable to the inf luence of Cantonese, the first language of the majority of HKE speakers. With reference to Schneider's model, the article suggests that HKE can be situated in phase 3 and is considered an 'emergent' variety with its norms still in the process of developing. While there are signs of increasing awareness of HKE as a distinct variety in the local community, ambivalent attitudes towards the acceptability of HKE as the linguistic norm still exist. It remains to be seen whether HKE will eventually reach phase 4 and become an autonomous variety of English in the near future. This review ends by suggesting several further research directions with respect to the study of HKE.

Investigating perceptions of English as a lingua franca in Hong Kong: The case of university students

“…As one of the major languages in the city, English is used as a major lingua franca by Hong Kong people for intercultural communication with people from the rest of the world. Apart from being a co-official language with Chinese, English plays a significant role in different sectors in Hong Kong society, including the government, business, higher education and the professional workplace, where the use of ELF is an everyday phenomenon (Bolton & Han, 2008; Sung, 2015). However, despite the increasing presence of ELF in intercultural communication, exonormative attitudes towards English in Hong Kong still prevail (see, Sewell, 2009; Tsui & Bunton, 2002).…”

Segmental Features of Hong Kong English: A Contrastive Approach Study

“…The study of the features of new varieties of Englishes is important, as it potentially offers implications for classroom pedagogies in ELT. As mentioned in the discussion, if intelligibility is the ultimate goal for students, regardless of the presence of unique features, there should be pedagogical implication to the ELT protocols in traditional classrooms, especially when the one in Hong Kong is typically exonormativeoriented (Sung 2015). Sakaria & Priyana (2018) mentioned that the use of a language that is familiar for the students to teach can actually enhance their learning.…”

“…HKE 1 has been studied under different topics in recent years. While many of the previous studies focused on the features of HKE (e.g., Hung 2000, Setter 2006, Setter et al 2010, Sewell & Chan 2010, Sung 2015, Hansen Edwards 2016a, and Wong 2017, a number of researches have also emerged to investigate HKE in different contexts, especially concerning the intelligibility of HKE (e.g., Sewell 2012, Zhang 2014). However, even though earlier studies have shown the features of HKE to be unique and highly intelligible to listeners worldwide, there has been a lack of emphasis on how the consonant features of HKE to be included in the language contact are processed.…”

Exploring second language speakers’ linguistic identities in ELF communication: a Hong Kong study

“…Many participants also had some experiences of going abroad where English was used as a means of communication. Although their language use in Hong Kong is still primarily Cantonese, especially for intra-ethic communication (Li 2009;Sung 2015b), these participants reported to have participated in ELF communication on a regular basis. In these intercultural interactions, communication was conducted through English as the primary language of communication.…”