Hong Kong Language Situation
Hong Kong is a monoethnic society with around 95% of population of Chinese descent. Though Cantonese is our mother toungue, Hong Kong is a diglossic language community with three languages used for communication- English, Standard Chinese, and Cantonese.
Due to Western cilivilization, English has been widely-used by the public in Hong Kong. After the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, English is still treated as a "high" language and is one of the official language used in the business sector and the educational system.
At the same time, the use Standard Chinese and Cantonese are marking our Chinese identity.
The grammatical standard of written Chinese is always based on the standard written style in China which is taught in our local schools. Cantonese is considered the "low" language used for oral communication. Written Cantonese is usually viewed as deviant and inferior as it contains many colloquial words that are not found in standard written Chinese. Yet., the appearance of written Cantonese in the popular press is on the rise.
After 1997, the government implemented the "biliterate trilingualism" language policy. It aimed to promote written Chinese and English and spoken Cantonese, Mandarin, and English Yet, Chinese is always our mother language so many just consier English as their second languag only. Hong Kong people love to switch between English and Cantonese in their speech in different situations like tutorial discussion in tertiary institutions, formal and informal conversation, television and radio broadcasting etc. The most common pattern in Cantonese-English is a single English word surrounded by other Cantonese constituents.
(Leung, 2010)
Due to Western cilivilization, English has been widely-used by the public in Hong Kong. After the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, English is still treated as a "high" language and is one of the official language used in the business sector and the educational system.
At the same time, the use Standard Chinese and Cantonese are marking our Chinese identity.
The grammatical standard of written Chinese is always based on the standard written style in China which is taught in our local schools. Cantonese is considered the "low" language used for oral communication. Written Cantonese is usually viewed as deviant and inferior as it contains many colloquial words that are not found in standard written Chinese. Yet., the appearance of written Cantonese in the popular press is on the rise.
After 1997, the government implemented the "biliterate trilingualism" language policy. It aimed to promote written Chinese and English and spoken Cantonese, Mandarin, and English Yet, Chinese is always our mother language so many just consier English as their second languag only. Hong Kong people love to switch between English and Cantonese in their speech in different situations like tutorial discussion in tertiary institutions, formal and informal conversation, television and radio broadcasting etc. The most common pattern in Cantonese-English is a single English word surrounded by other Cantonese constituents.
(Leung, 2010)