Topic 2: The Current Status and Functions of English in Hong Kong

Introduction

Hong Kong is a small city with a population of around 7.5 million by the end of 2019

(Census and Statistics Department, March 2020). The population of Hong Kong is comprised

of mainly ethnically Chinese, which is around 92% in 2016, while the remaining 8% of the

population is made up of Filipinos, Indonesian, Japanese and many other ethnicities (Census

and Statistics Department, 2017). Hong Kong, as a former colony of the British Empire has

both English and Chinese as its official languages. While the function of English in the

general public is not proportionate with its status, the term of Hong Kong English has been

central to the study of many scholars, i.e. Schneider (2007), Li (2018), Li (1999) etc. Hong

Kong English takes a very special form within the society, where people would infuse

English with Cantonese characteristics. What role does English play in this Chinese-dominant

society? How much does the society engage with code-switching and how does that affect the

usage of English in Hong Kong? The essay will be in four parts:

I. Functions of English in Hong Kong

II. Status of English in Hong Kong

III. Factors Leading to the Functions and Status of English in Hong Kong

IV. Future Prospects of English in Hong Kong

Functions of English in Hong Kong

The government domain can be considered to be currently the most active in

promoting the usage of English in the society. This can be reflected by keeping English as the

official language of Hong Kong SAR along with Chinese (Cantonese and Putonghua) even

after the 1997 handover. Due to this bilingual requirement, majority of the government

operations in Hong Kong must include both English and Chinese services, no matter in
written or spoken form. In the legal aspect, the Basic Law and other official legal documents

in Hong Kong are all primarily in English. Court proceedings can also be held in either

English or Chinese according to the needs of the court. In terms of public notices and signs,

all notices that are shown to the public must be available in both English and Chinese, this

also applies to official government websites and official announcements on the media. One of

the recent examples would be of Carrie Lam’s announcement of the withdrawal of the

extradition bill on September 2019, formal announcement was completed in both Cantonese

and English (Video #1 and #2).

In the employment domain, while Hong Kong is mainly a Chinese-populated city, it

is known for being an international financial hub, with 93.1% of Hong Kong’s GDP relying

on the services sector, such as import/export retail or accommodation services (Census and

Statistics Department, March 2020). Therefore, it is very important for the Hong Kong

workforce to obtain a proficient level of English and Putonghua as they may have to deal

with customers that speak those languages on a day-to-day basis. Due to this reason, in a

survey conducted from 2012-2013, around 68.8% of the employers expects prospective

employees to be able to achieve the level of Effective Communication in both written and

spoken English for international communication, to reach the level of a Native Speaker is

mainly not required (Bacon-Shone and Bolton, 2015). Therefore, from the above, we can see

how even though English may not be used that much in the local Hong Kong community,

there is still demand for employees to possess a proficient level of English to be able to

conduct effective communication with their international customers.

The education domain is one quite complex in Hong Kong and also a place where

the phenomena of code-switching/code-mixing has been put in the spotlight. In the case of

education, Hong Kong is mainly comprised of local schools, where schools can either have

English as medium of instruction (EMI) or Chinese as medium of instruction (CMI). Due to

recent policy changes, the line between these two languages have become more blurred, but

schools that claim to be EMI still strive to maintain an all English environment despite some

obvious difficulties, such as my secondary school Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club

College. Currently, we cannot know the number of EMI or CMI schools due to the policy

change, but we see from a research from Tsang (2008), that students from CMI schools only

have a quarter of a chance of students from EMI schools to get into tertiary education, that

was when CMI schools took up 80% of the secondary schools in Hong Kong. Therefore,

parents would highly encourage their children to enrol in EMI schools. However, from Li

(2018), we are proved once again students have difficulties catching up in classes that are

fully conducted in English due to their linguistic background, where students mainly come

from Cantonese-speaking communities. This is one of the reasons why code-switching/code-

mixing is becoming a common phenomenon in EMI classrooms (Li, 1999). Teachers use

Chinese mixed with English as a way to facilitate the students’ learning, but this type of

teaching is highly discouraged by educational authorities and some teachers can be heavily

reprimanded for doing so. From Low and Lu (2006), we can also see how code-switching and

code-mixing has been extended to the usage within the home and also in leisure activities.

The media domain does not put emphasis on English as much as the other domains.

TVB, the major provider of cabled TV in Hong Kong has Pearl, an English tv channel, but

other than Pearl and one or two minor tv channels, cabled TV in Hong Kong are mainly in

Cantonese. Local social media or advertisements on the other hand tend to use written

Cantonese for their marketing slogans, even under the situation that English is used, it tends

to be in the form of code-switching/code-mixing. Very rarely is English used independently

in the mainstream media of Hong Kong. One of the examples would be the usage of “Yellow

Summer” in the Mcdonald’s advertisement for a fast food series based on Minions (Photo 1).
Advertisements usually would employ inter-sentential code-mixing as a way to present the

English word as a pun to attract customer’s attention.

Status of English in Hong Kong

To reflect the current reality of the society, the general public now mostly engages in

Hong Kong English and code-switching/mixing as opposed to using standard English. In the

usage of English in Hong Kong, we can say it is used in mainly three modes. As Standard

English, Hong Kong English and in code-switching/mixing. Currently, the identity of Hong Kong

English is still uncertain as it mainly is just a result of locals that are not very fluent in English

speaking English. Hence bringing in characteristics of Cantonese into English, things like

pronunciation, grammar or word usage (e.g. laugh die me 笑死我, I don’t agree lor 我唔同意咯

etc.) However, Hong Kong English is still generally perceived as an impure form of English and

low variety that is used within the society.

If we are to classify the status of English in society in general. The reality is that in the

most basic level of the society, the students, employees and majority of the population, English is

not the most commonly used language. However, people still view English as a necessary tool to

success. According to Luke and Richards (1982:55), they believe that to be considered a “second

language”, English has to be used more pervasively in intra-group communication, such as

English in India. In the case of Hong Kong, English cannot be defined as such because people

still largely use Cantonese as their main mode of communication. To be considered a “foreign

language” on the other hand, the language cannot be used as the official language or the medium

of instruction (Luke and Richards, 1982:55). However, that is also not the case in Hong Kong as

English is widely used in the government and the education domain as the official language and

medium of instruction respectively. As for the concept of “auxiliary language”, Luke and

Richards (1982:55) defines it as a non-native language used for restricted functions by a restricted

sector in society. While I do agree that English in Hong Kong is mainly used among a restricted

sector for restricted functions in the society (namely the legal or governmental sector, or native
English speakers), in reality, the current status of English is higher than that. As implied by the

functions of English, we see that society generally sees English as a necessary tool to success.

Most white-collar jobs such as lawyer, doctor or being a civil servant requires a proficient level of

English. Students from EMI schools have a relatively higher chance to receive further tertiary

education compared to students from CMI schools. Therefore, the current status of English in

Hong Kong should be nearer to the definition of a “value-added” language proposed by Li

(1999:94-95), which is the fact that people see that particular language as a key to career

opportunities and success even though they can actually live without it.

Since English has such a high status in Hong Kong despite being a non-native language,

this also causes a lot of controversy on the usage of code-switching/code-mixing. Code-mixing

and code-switching, as differentiated by Luke and Richards (1982), is that code-switching

requires a much higher proficiency in English as it involves larger stretches of language

alternation. In the case of code-switching, people that demonstrate the ability to smoothly

transition from Cantonese to English was the symbol of being “well-educated” and “westernized”

(Poon, 2010). Even in my generation, students from first-tier Band A schools or international

school students, such as Diocesan Girls’ School or Queen’s College often code-switch to a very

large degree. Currently, those that participate in code-switching are still viewed as higher-

achieving and part of the upper to middle class social circle. However, both code-switching

and code-mixing is viewed as a low variety and highly discouraged in classrooms (Li, 1999).

In my own experience, this phenomenon of code-switching is heavily discouraged in the

classrooms, with teachers sometimes even telling students that if there are any questions that

they do not understand, to find them after class so that they can properly explain it to them in

Cantonese. In the case of code-mixing, (Li, 1999) .Therefore, the status of code-

switching/mixing can be very different under different contexts. To be more specific, code-

switching can be considered as a symbol of high status when used in more private settings

(among friends, classmates, family), while code-mixing is considered as a lower variety in

most contexts. Code-mixing and code-switching are still viewed as a lower variety in more

official settings, such as the classrooms, or press conferences etc.

Factors Leading to the Functions and Status of English in Hong Kong

There are many factors that led to the current functions and status of English and also

to how code-switching/mixing is used in Hong Kong. However, one of the main reasons why

Hong Kong put so much emphasis on English that it became a kind of “value-added”

language is due to its history as a former colony of the British empire. Hong Kong came

under the rule of the British Empire after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and

only officially returned to China in 1997. As a British colony, the law, education and even

public officials had to be English. In fact, Chinese only became the official language of Hong

Kong in 1974, more than 100 years after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. Therefore, we

can see how Hong Kong came to be heavily influenced by English, especially in higher level

domains of the society. After long years of colonization, it is also reasonable to assume that

there would be large numbers of people that know English, despite not being fluent. As Li

(1994) has concluded, people that are bilingual engage in code-switching just as a means to

communicate more effectively. Due to this special historical background of Hong Kong,

code-switching became a more widespread phenomena than expected.

The economic structure of Hong Kong also greatly contributes to the current status of

English. As seen from data of Census and Statistics Department (March 2020), the 93.1% of

Hong Kong’s GDP relies on the services industry. This also implies like majority of the

workforce would work in jobs like export/import retails, accommodation and financing etc.

These types of jobs require employees to be in contact with different customers on a day-to-

day basis. With the growing trend of globalization and Hong Kong being an international

financial city, people in the workforce have to deal with international tourists or businesses

frequently. While the local community may not necessarily need English to operate, since
there is already an established international market in Hong Kong, and English is an

international language, it is still very possible that businesses will have a growing demand of

English towards their employees.

Socially, as indicated from the above many families view English to be a very

important skillset in order to be able to achieve higher social status. From a very young age,

students have to learn English in school and also in tutoring classes. People from middle-

class families or upper-class families would hire Filipino domestic helpers, thinking that it

would encourage their children to speak English more (Li, 2018). To accommodate the level

of students studying in those schools, teachers would mix Chinese into their classes to

promote better understanding. On a more general sense, while the government sees

themselves clearly as users of the English language, the general public does not reflect that in

their daily living. Even with the usage of English, people from Hong Kong rarely identify

themselves as British even before the Handover, most would identify as Chinese or

Hongkonger and this affects their attitude of learning English. This could be the cause of the

current paradox in Hong Kong, where English is socially perceived as a high variety, but at

the same time perceived as something unnecessary in their daily lives.

Future Prospects of English in Hong Kong

Currently, according to the Census and Statistics Department (January 2020), the

majority of the people (around 40% of the responses), no matter economically active or

economically inactive perceive themselves to be only Average in spoken and written English.

Therefore, we can see how general society perceived themselves and to very likely only

possess an average proficiency in English. Also from the fact that English is currently not a

necessary skillset to conduct effective communication in the local community of Hong Kong.
Even if the locals view English as a very important language, with infrequent use, it is not

very likely for the public to be fluent in English even in the near future.

On the other hand, the importance of English is still not likely to wane in the

foreseeable future due to the social construct and governmental policies to promote the

language. According to Schneider’s Dynamic Model of the evolution of postcolonial

Englishes (2007), Hong Kong is currently in the phase of nativization, which is the when

common bilingualism is beginning to be the dominant phenomena in society. While I do

disagree that the levels of English can vary from person to person, but the trend of mixing

English with Cantonese (code-mixing and code-switching) is becoming more common within

the society. The term Hong Kong English may not be acknowledged in the past, i.e. Luke and

Richards (1982), but recent studies have begun integrating Hong Kong English as part of the

language studies in Hong Kong, i.e. Li (1999), Li (2018) etc. Therefore one thing we can be

sure of in the next 10 years is that English will still remain to be one of the most important

languages in Hong Kong and may be increasingly integrated into the society in the form of

code-switching/mixing. Whether views on code-switching/mixing will change entirely

depends on the government and the social norm, but if Hong Kong chooses to embrace the

use of code-switching/mixing, Hong Kong English may even further develop into a language

or dialect of its own, like Patua, but that is still something that cannot be certain due to

political and social variants in the society.

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Videos:

Video #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKjH5acDe5s
Video #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No8h4W5SPhU
Photo 1