The sociolinguistics of Hong Kong and the space for Hong Kong English

Abstract

While Asian Englishes such as Indian English, Malaysian English, Philippine English, and Singapore English have gained wide acceptance in the past two decades, relatively little notice has been taken of ‘Hong Kong English’. This paper surveys the sociolinguistic background to the recognition of Hong Kong English, and considers the arguments in favour of a ‘paradigm shift’ in approaches to this issue. The paper begins by reviewing the history of English in Hong Kong and language planning and language policies in the late colonial period. It then goes on to discuss the ideological background to English in Hong Kong, noting the persistence of the ‘monolingual myth’ and the ‘invisibility myth’ in a number of recent sociolinguistic discourses. In the later sections of the paper, the case is made not only for a recognition of Hong Kong English in terms of distinctive linguistic features at the levels of accent and vocabulary, but also with reference to the creativity of the variety, in literary as well as less formal contexts. Ultimately, it is suggested, the notion of a distinct variety rests not only on the recognition of features of language, but also on the acceptance of a new space, or spaces, for the discourses of Hong Kong English.