HONG KONG ENGLISH

“First, there is the great Chinglish tongue, which accomplisheth commerce and the daily lives of men.  When the poet asketh: “Who knoweth the way of a man with a maid?” the answer is: “It is with Chinglish in sooth.” And yet where are the academies of Chinglish, where are the dominies and the scribes of Chinglish, which draweth men together in harmony and in pleasure?  Lo, there be none.”

From Chalkley (1979), The Book of Hong,Chapter X.

“... it is now firmly accepted that English can no longer be offered, or received, as a “possession” of the native speakers which foreign learners must aspire to.  Nor is it any longer true that any and every learner should try to speak English like a Britisher or an American: the choice of model willvary from place to place and may often appropriately be that of the local, educated population.”

From Strevens (1987), “Cultural Barriers to Language Learning.”

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS HONG KONG ENGLISH?

Before we can accept that the English spoken in Hong Kong by many Cantonese speakers is erroneous, and therefore suggest that Hong Kong speakers are experiencing some kind of difficulty in producing accurate English, it is necessary to consider the question of Hong Kong English’s possible status as a variant of English in the same way as Indian English or any of the other New Englishes are accepted as being variants rather than defective attempts to reach some acceptable norm.

An important study of English in S.E. Asia, Noss (1984) does not mention Hong Kong except in passing but has some illuminating insights which may help to place some of the difficulties with English in Hong Kong in a somewhat broader context:

“Apart from the associations of English with colonialism and elite education in South-East Asia, there is the very practical problem of supplying teachers who are capable of teaching the language as a subject or teaching other subjects in it.”

“In the Philippines... English is accepted (even expected) for certain domains, e.g. cocktail parties, business firms at the managerial level, board of directors’ meetings, international gatherings, and formal academic conventions.... However, a Filipino who speaks with an American or British accent that is not fully integrated with his ordinary speech would be considered ‘OA’ (overacting) and would be looked on with some amusement as a phoney.”

“The fear of outside cultural influences... contains within it a further irrationality: the uneasy feeling that perhaps foreign languages are “ superior to indigenous ones...” If our children have to study English, they will learn foreign ways  and customs, and it will make them forget their Thai ways and  customs.””

Another ‘anthology’, by the same author, entitled Varieties of English in Southeast “ Asia” (ed. Noss 1983) fails to mention  ‘Hong Kong English’ (although Hong Kong is sometimes identified as part of South-East Asia.)

Books with an international scope seem more inclined to identify a Hong Kong English as a distinct variety of English.  Whether this represents true knowledge or a short-cut attempt to be comprehensive is an important question not resolved for example by Trudgill and Hannah (1982) who speak in terms of the use of English as an official language, the language of education and as a means of wider communication in ‘Africa,  Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Indian sub- continent’.

It is clearly misguided to lump together even Singapore and Hong Kong which differ greatly in their use of English.

 Todd and Hancock (1986) identify a distinct form of Hong Kong English, although their analysis is brief (see below).  Munby (1978) identifies the English of Hong Kong (‘and etc.’) as an‘Other national standard of English’  (Malay/Chinese) with Indian English, Australian English and many others (p.86)’.  McArthur (1987) sees Hong Kong English as a branch of East Asian Standardizing English which is a branch of ‘World Standard English’.

In such ‘global models’, Hong Kong English is a convenient addition and serves a useful purpose in such a generalised view of things.  It is difficult to believe that the compilers such models would have included ‘Hong Kong English’ if they had been acquainted at first hand with the conditions of language use in Hong Kong.  As we have noted above, scholars acquainted with South and East Asia tend to ignore the phenomenon of ‘Hong Kong English’.

NEW ENGLISHES

The term ‘New Englishes’, according to Harris (1989), is a polite euphemism which has replaced terms used previously such as ‘non- native Englishes’ and ‘colonial Englishes’.  New Englishes are  ‘those distinctive forms of English developed in former British colonies through the education system by being taught to populations which had as their own mother tongue some language other than English.’ Examples of a New English are Indian, Caribbean and Nigerian English but not American or Australian English.

Harris does not support the idea, proposed for example by Platt Weber and Ho (1984), that there is such a thing as Hong Kong English, at least as an English which can be said to be a New English.  Much of ‘Hong Kong English’ is to be considered as ‘a desperate floundering in the attempt to use correctly an old variety of English poorly mastered.’  A similar view is taken by Gonzalez (writing in Noss 1983) who suggests that some of what is taken to be Philippine English is a product of bad teaching. Examples abound of what Harris finds to be ‘bad English, incompetent English, English which someone doesn’t really know how to handle.’  (Additional examples of Hong Kong English howlers are provided by Baker, (1990) Chap. 41). Is there a case, however, for defining Hong Kong English in just this way - as inaccurate, partly pidginized, imitative of old-fashioned

English, with constantly recurring patterns of error (e.g. articles, tense, prepositions)? Although not a New English, this variety may be identifiable as a specific category which could be termed ‘Hong Kong English’ as it is spoken by Hong Kong people and by no other people.  On the other hand, is there anything to be gained by having such a category? Can it be studied in any meaningful way?, Does every Hong Kong speaker exhibit such ‘bad English’ or does ‘Hong Kong English’ as a non-native variety confine itself to a minority of fluent speakers?  It is probably true to say that all Hong Kong speakers of English share, albeit in some cases only occasionally, some of the traits of a definable ‘Hong Kong English’ and that fluent, competent speakers are true examples of a non-native variety.  Because of the varied levels of competence in English in Hong Kong, it is difficult to define just what is bad English and what is truly and distinctively a non-native variety.

The question of Hong Kong English raises the whole question of English language varieties v. Standard English.  Quirk (1988) sees ‘half-baked quackery’ and ‘liberation linguistics’ afoot in the attempts of some to legitimize every variety of English, be it a user or use variety.  He believes ‘Hong Kong English’ is a confusing name as it does not differentiate between user and use (the English used by Hong Kong people or the Hong Kong  Institutionalized Variety, if there is such a variety).  The difference between Taiwanese English and Hong Kong English points to the variety of Chinese, not of English, spoken in each place. Hong Kong English may also be a ‘performance variety’, ‘by means of which one can sometimes recognise the ethnic background by his or her English’.  At any rate, if a variety is not ‘institutionalised’, and no non-native variety is, says Quirk, then it cannot properly be called a variety.  We take issue with this assertion later.  It is probably true, however, to be guarded about the adoption and promotion of non-native varieties as deviation can so easily mask, or excuse, incompetence (a point made by Harris above).  Low standards of English do not promote their speakers but keep them in lowly positions.

New Englishes is a term defined by Platt, Weber and Ho (1984) as a form of English which:

·        developed through the education system.

·        developed in an area where a variety of English was not the  language spoken by most of the population.

·        is used for a range of functions among those who speak or write  in the region where it is used.

·        has become ‘localized’ or ‘nativized’ by adopting some language  features of its own.

The first condition would appear to be fulfilled by the use of English in Hong Kong.  But in what way has English’developed’ through the education system.  It is seen as the ‘language of success’ and is used in the majority of secondary schools as a ‘medium of instruction’, yet it has probably developed less as a New and specific form of English but more as an auxiliary language (Luke and Richards 1982).  The ‘textual explanation approach’, in which textbooks are indeed in English but explanation is in Cantonese, which I have observed to be the usual, and most practical, method of using English textbooks in the majority of Hong Kong schools sampled leads less to a ‘development’ of English but more to confusion and alienation.

I have referred to this confusion in a recent paper (Adams 1990):

“English is not in the here and now in Hong Kong classrooms even though the language is needed in the real world.  English exists in the text books.”

“English has a schizoid function for many students in Hong Kong, associated as it is with the formal, the unpleasant and the coldly functional.  Cantonese is the “real” language and is to be used in all pleasant situations.”

Moreover, the early educational strategy of English for an elite (Sweeting 1990) limited the ‘development’ of a New English to a relatively small pool of users: the professional classes, administrators, government employees and so on.  Such  ‘development’, always conscious of the need to accommodate itself to British rulers, was imitative rather than innovative.

The second condition is obviously true of Hong Kong.  The salient fact about Hong Kong was that it was not colonised by the British to any great extent but by the Chinese, under British direction, from Guangdong and other parts of China.  English has never truly operated as a lingua franca as in Singapore or as a bridge between native languages as in Nigeria or India.  Societal factors seem to have divided the small English-speaking community from the Chinese - perhaps because, as Baker (1983) suggests, each community considers itself to be superior to the other. This is probably less true nowadays than it was even ten years ago.  Younger people, especially, are losing their inhibitions to seek out friends from the other language group.  Students report a desire to get to know at least one foreign friend.  ‘Enclosure’ and ‘social distance’ are weaker forces in 1990 than they were in 1982 (Luke and Richards). The catastrophe of Tiananmen (1989) and the failure of the Basic Law to convince Hong Kong people of a continuance of Hong Kong’s specific cultural differences from the mainland have also persuaded a growing number of people to look outside their own culture, not only for reasons of self-interest  (emigration).  As the hold of London on the territory declines through localisation of the Civil Service and the introduction of more direct elections to the Legislative Council, expatriates too are losing more of their ‘social distance’ as they become less individuals vested with power and influence and more colleagues competing with the local workforce on an equal footing.  Recent years have also seen a rise in tourism from Hong Kong and a growth in the number of students studying abroad (the figure for students studying in Australia for example stood at 1,877 in 1987 and at 4,678 in 1989).

The internationalisation and broadening of attitudes which such factors probably bring about make the traditional idea of Hong Kong society as ‘two parallel cultures’ more and more an erroneous cliche.  On the other hand, recent developments in micro will only slowly alter the prevailing spirit of intimacy/acceptance v.polarisation/distance in macro and, in the linguistic sphere, will probably not show results for a generation.  It might well be that a Hong Kong English will develop more rapidly when the colonial constraint is removed altogether.

The third condition is also true to some extent for Hong Kong, but again needs some qualification.  With the exception, we are told by Kwok and Richards, of the meetings of higher Government officials and of educational settings, English is seldom used orally between Chinese people in Hong Kong. Kwok and Chan reported in 1972 that English was sometimes used with siblings by Hong Kong University students but never when speaking to parents Platt (1982) reports that he did not hear English in the in informal situations in the corridors of HKU but quite often around the campus in Singapore. English is not only a formal language in Hong Kong but a passive one: students use it for exams, essays, lecture notes. Students may have had fifteen years of some kind of English learning when they enter a tertiary institution in Hong Kong, but rarely, in my experience, become fluent in the language, even less ‘intellectually fluent’ in the way Harris (1989) describes. The consequences of this lack of fluency include a tendency not to develop a particularly ‘Hong Kong English’ as most students, we propose, never get beyond a ‘formal textbook English’ to incorporate features from their own environment and first language beyond the idiosyncratic and the accidental.

The fourth condition appears to be true in the limited amount of research done into the subject.  I have already mentioned Luke and Richards’ analysis (1982) of the phonological peculiarities of Hong Kong Chinese English speakers of medium proficiency.   Platt, Weber and Ho (1984) cite a number of lexical and phonological deviant features in their examples of the New Englishes. Webster, Ward and Craig (1987) present four categories of interference patterns - morphological, syntactical, lexical and unclassified - of Cantonese produced by Hong Kong students of English.  If these observations are indeed patterns, then we could infer that English has become ‘localized’ or ‘nativized’ and the condition could be found to be met.  See also the studies and assessments of Bunton, Tse, Chan, Shek, Todd and Hancock, Swan and Winter, Bailey and Goerlach, Quirk and Widdowson, and Pride below.

LOCALIZED FORMS OF ENGLISH, NON-NATIVE ENGLISHES, NON-NATIVE

VARIETIES AND ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE                                                  

If we may not speak of Hong Kong English as a New English, it may be possible to define it another way. A useful collection of categories, incorporating much of the thinking on the subject, are presented by Strevens, Fishman and Kachru writing in Kachru (1983) and by Kachru alone (1986).

Strevens’ Local Forms of English are defined and differentiated from Standard English in terms of accent and dialect, lectal range, variety range, discoursal rules, ‘standard dialect’, status, attitudes and affinities: ‘the LFE as a vehicle for education, administration, science and technology, literature, the media, entertainment, and publicity.’  Whilst giving a broad framework of a definition, there are no exclusive criteria for defining what is an LFE and what is not.  It may be convenient to describe ‘Hong Kong English’ in such a broadly defined way however in view of the shortage of comprehensive research data for precise definition.  In any case, individual performance gives no real clue as to what the LFE is: ‘The nature of the LFE is a gross generalization perceived behind and through the idiolectal performance of individuals.’

Fishman’s EAL (English as an Additional Language) is ‘a little bit of English for everyone’ but he sees an increasing  ‘protectionising force ‘to make sure that English does not intrude upon the domains of local ideology, literature, history and citizenship’ and cites as  examples Tanzania, Taiwan, India, France and Puerto  Rico. Is Hong Kong such a case, where English is caught in a dynamic, perhaps, of Second Language v.  Additional Language?  Perhaps, too the distinction he sees in attitudes between English and French could be extended to English v. Cantonese: ‘French is widely viewed as more beautiful, musical, pleasant, rhythmic, refined, intimate, pure, soothing, graceful, tender and lovely but English is viewed as richer, more precise, more logical, more sophisticated, and more competence related.’ The logical conclusion in Fishman’s terms is that attitude defines what status we give to ‘Hong Kong English’ - whether we view it as accepted and integrated or rejected and excluded.  An interesting term in this respect is of the local language being the ‘local integrative language’ which relates to the idea expressed in the TA model that Cantonese is capable of use by all the ego states whilst English is discounted and relegated to the Parent and the Adult.

Kachru’s own review of models for Non-Native Englishes conspicuously omits Hong Kong English (although his work includes an analysis of Mainland Chinese English).  Non-native languages may be discussed in acquisitional, sociocultural, motivational and functional terms.  An important distinction is to be made between second language and foreign language and between a transplanted language and a on-transplanted variety. We need also to distinguish between performance varieties (highly restricted uses); institutionalized varieties (more integrated); and a generally accepted variety. Kachru suggests, interestingly, that non-native institutionalized varieties of English (and Hong Kong English could be included amongst them at least provisionally) pass through four phases of development:

Firstly non-recognition, secondly varieties within a variety, followed by slow acceptance of the non-native variety as a norm and, finally, recognition.  I would suggest Hong Kong English is between the first and second stages, if anywhere.

This position is similar to the findings of Platt (writing in

Bailey and Goerlach, 1982) that:

“At present, there is probably less justification for speaking of a Hong Kong English than a Singaporean English as a variety in its own right.  Nevertheless, certain typical characteristics appear to be emerging.”

Functions of English may include instrumental uses, regulative uses, interpersonal uses and imaginative/innovative uses.  My comment here is the ‘interpersonal’ use in the Hong Kong context which is severely limited and likely to be between native and foreigner.  A comparison with Singapore, as in Tay (1982), where English has at least six uses: official, education, working language, lingua franca, ‘language for the expression of a cultural identity’ and international language, is revealing.

The depth of penetration of English ‘ to various societal levels’ also seems to be important in the formation of a non-native English as is the degree of nativization: “The greater number of functions and the longer the period, the more nativized is the variety.”  My comment here is that English has been the language of an elite for most of its history in Hong Kong and its number of functions has been limited to educational instruction, official notification, administration, the law, tourism.  The whole power relationship of use has been, in many cases, master and servant.

The attitude of native and non-native users towards non-native varieties, Kachru’s next consideration in his model, has been marked by non-acceptance on the part of native speakers and by an inability to accept their ‘ecological validity’ on the part of non-native speakers.  This lack of acceptance is being replaced, according to Bolton and Kwok (1988) by a growing acceptance of the ‘Hong Kong Accent’ (as it is perceived) by Hong Kong people.  This was not true for Platt (writing in Bailey and Goerlach 1982), who found a ‘learner’s language, a developmental continuum rather than a lectal and developmental continuum as in the case of Singaporean English.’

Kachru next discusses the importance of a distinction discussed below and elsewhere in this thesis: what is a deviation, a mistake and the norm with reference to English in general and a non-native form of English in particular?  An interesting point is: ‘A number of ‘deviations’ labelled as ‘mistakes’ are present in native varieties of English but are not accepted when used by

a non-native speaker.’  These deviations have been labelled ‘deficiencies’ as opposed to being indicators of ‘difference’.

‘Deficiency refers to acquisitional and/or performance deficiency within the context in which English functions as L2.  On the other hand, a different model refers to the identificational features which mark an educated variety of language distinct from another educated variety.’  As Bolton and Kwok point out, educated users in Hong Kong are tending more and more to speak a variety of English marked by common variants typical of Hong Kong speakers.  The features of Hong Kong English which have already been identified by Bolton and Kwok, Luke and Richards and Platt, Weber and Ho may not be strictly identificational in view of the developmental stage of Hong Kong English  (see above). 

The question of intelligibility is central in a discussion of non-native English but appears, according to Kachru, to be the least researched.  An important question here is:’ Who is the judge for determining intelligibility in various varieties of English - the users of the varieties themselves, or the idealized native speakers?’  If ‘Hong Kong English’ becomes unintelligible, does it constitute a variety of English, or perhaps another language? In practice, this question hardly arises as  ‘unintelligible’ English in Hong Kong is a transitory variety of a beginner or poor learner.  The best exponents of Hong Kong English are clearly intelligible to native speakers of English.  On the other hand, it has occurred in my experience that I have been unable to follow a discussion held in English by my Polytechnic students when the students themselves could follow everything.  Intelligibility to native speakers is important in Hong Kong as the users cannot claim, as Mehrotra (1982) does in the case of Indian English, that one standard for the territory is needed rather than a standard of International Standard English.  English in Hong Kong is rarely used as the normal means of communication between Cantonese speakers.

A further important point is the adoption of either a polymodel or monomodel approach  - a monomodel assumes that the goals for the study of English and the functional roles are the same in an L2 speech community and indeed all over the world.  A polymodel accepts at least three variables; acquisition, function and context of situation.  In a polymodel, Hong Kong English would present varying formal characteristics, functional diversity and differing levels of proficiency.  Whether a polymodel confuses more than helps a definition of ‘Hong Kong English’ is a question I cannot as yet resolve.  Certainly, the functional roles of English in Hong Kong appear to be more homogeneous than in other non-native variety communities, so a monomodel may be more applicable.

Kachru, speaking from the point of view of Indian English I believe, claims that: “The acceptance of a model depends on its users: the users must demonstrate a solidarity, identity, and loyalty toward a language variety.”  There is no evidence that anything more than acceptance is indicated in Hong Kong English’s case and this is not unqualified (Bolton and Kwok 1988). The  linguistic solidarity, identity and loyalty of Hong Kong people is more with Cantonese and the related giant, Mandarin, than to English.

WHEN DOES AN ERROR BECOME A FEATURE OF HONG KONG ENGLISH?

It may be useful to look at errors as evidence of some sort of pattern. Newbrook (1991) estimates that even at tertiary level, the rate of grammatical error is about 2 per line or short sentence in Hong Kong. Students however prefer to attribute their weakness in English to a lack of vocabulary items. Students appear to be complacent with regard to written, if not spoken English. Thus, errors may be more fossilised and persistent in written as opposed to spoken English. Interestingly, Longman Publishing has sponsored three guides to English errors in Hong Kong, one of general (Bunton 1989), one of spoken errors (J. and L. Boyle 1991) and one devoted to ‘Business English errors’ (Potter 1992).

Bunton (1989) claims that ‘seventy per cent of these Hong Kong errors did not appear in a UK study of errors made by foreign learners of English’. The study of errors he is referring to is Heaton and Turton (1987), which is a study of the errors made by all foreign learners of English.  The errors seem to present something strikingly unique if 70% of the work can be over­ looked by a general work such as Heaton and Turton.  In addition, Bunton suggests that “certain errors are so strongly present in Hong Kong that many otherwise good speakers and writers of English might assume that they are alternative cor­rect versions unless actually shown they are wrong”.   There does not seem to be a belief here in a ‘Hong Kong English’ but certainly a belief in Hong Kong English errors!

J. and L. Boyle (1991) differentiate between errors caused by  interference from Cantonese, those which show ‘inappropriate  language use’  and those which are errors of ‘grammar and  vocabulary’. This distinction is illusory of course. Many errors are a combination of all three. Like Bunton’s book (above), the cataloguing of errors is largely unsystematic (although arranged in subject areas) and no general picture of underlying transfer problems is provided. One wonders how such a book could be useful to Hong Kong learners of English in the long run, despite the authors’ claims to practicality and accessibility.

Potter (1992) divides his ‘Hong Kong business English’ errors into traditional grammatical areas, e.g. parts of speech, articles, active and passive and like the Boyles’ work above, gives no analysis, contrastive or otherwise, of Hong Kong English errors.

Tse (1990) takes a similar approach and divides his collection of typical Hong Kong errors into nine sections:

Adjectives

Adverbs

Agreement

Comparison

‘Sentences’  (word order, superfluous or missing words)

Nouns

Articles

Participles

Gerunds

Shek (1970), writing in his study of secondary school errors, provides the following information:

Verb usage was the principal error in Forms 1-5(22.4%, 24.8%, 13.5%, 12.8% and 15.5% of sample showing a diversification of error to other error types after Form One.)

·        Difficulty with expressions, spelling and agreement ranked    second (9.2% to 12.7% of sample)

·        Difficulty with ‘word usage’ ranked third in Forms 1-4 (8.6 to 11.0% of sample).

·        Difficulty with articles was reasonably high (4.6% to 7.3% of sample) and increased from Form 1-5.

The study confirms the general conclusion of most sources that agreements, verb usage and articles are major areas of error for Hong Kong learners of English.

Bunton (1989) does not identify explicitly any significant patterns of error, although the actual examples may be ‘unique’  to Hong Kong. Bunton (1991) finds the following categories of error present in Hong Kong strongly present in an international sample: noun countability, time expressions, -ed/-ing adjectives, connectives and determiners. The following categories of Hong Kong error are very poorly represented in the international sample.

·        Lexical choice: e.g. ‘busy time’ instead of rush hour and  ‘golden time’ instead of ‘prime time’. These owe much to Can­tonese language transfer but some items do not seem to owe

any­thing to such interference (and are thus perhaps indicative of a regional variety):  e.g.  ‘facilitate’ confused   with ‘serve’.

·        Semantic mismatch: e.g. ‘return to school’ instead of ‘go to school’. Some errors are due to language transfer and a differing world view inherent in L1.  However, the majority of such errors that do not appear in the international sample do not have an obvious influence from Cantonese, e.g. ‘the problem was improved’ and ‘in my opinion I think’.

Collocation: e.g. ‘put off the clothes’. Many Hong Kong errors are ‘developmental problems with English’ (Bunton 1991:19) and not negative transfer.

Word class: e.g. confusion of noun with adjectives. This cate­gory is not in the international sample by a ratio of over seven to one. Such errors are largely due to negative transfer.  Verbs - Direct/Indirect Objects and Active/Passive: e.g. ‘I agree what he said’, ‘she emphasised on the importance of...’;

‘ a strange person was appeared’. Imitation as well as learner over-compensation play an important role in the formation of such errors.

Introductory ‘it’ and ‘there’: e.g. have many people in Central.

Negative transfer from Cantonese.
Spelling: some errors arise from transfer of pronunciation problems; distinction between l/r and ize/ice.

Although unique errors which may not be ascribed to L1 interference exist, this may not mean that they represent a distinct variety. They may simply show an unsure grasp of the language systemised and generally accepted!

Tse’s analysis is much more straightforward and compares to those produced by Todd and Hancock (1986) and Swan and Smith (1987).  The former, in a brief analysis, emphasise points of phonology made by Luke and Richards such as the substitution of sh (e.g. in  ‘should’) by s- (as in ‘sip’), the simplification of consonant clusters, deletion of final consonants (or more correctly speaking, their replacement with a glottal stop as Todd and Hancock specify).  Swan and Smith suggest that their list of Chinese Learner English is typical of Cantonese and Mandarin speakers and include, in the analysis of spoken forms, most of Luke and Richards’ list (but Luke and Richards include one feature, the extra d before the past tense suffix -ed and understand the typically Cantonese (and generally Chinese) catenation of words as an intrusion of a glottal stop rather than a vowel, as Swan and Smith describe. In the analysis of written errors, Swan and Smith use the term ‘parts of speech’ to include many of the types of errors in Tse’s divisions of adjectives/adverbs/verbs/nouns (and in Bunton’s ‘Confusion of  Noun and Adjective’ and ‘Confusion of Noun and Verb’).

Similar findings of phonetic and morpho-syntactic features are made by Platt writing in Bailey and Goerlach (1982).

Further analysis reveals that there are distinct patterns of Hong Kong error which lead one to a tentative conclusion that there may be something which we could call ‘Hong Kong English’, but not  in the sense of a New English for reasons which we shall  presently propose. Salient characteristics of the Hong Kong variety (or deviant if this will comfort prescriptive grammarians like Bunton) are, syntactically, lexically and grammatically speaking, (when compared to a notional ‘standard English):

·        Confusion of adjectives/adverbs/nouns/verbs. This can be accounted for, to a large extent, by interference.

·        ‘Difficulty’ with tenses (probably through interference.  Cantonese uses tense particles, English often changes word form).

·        Difficulty with number esp. countable/uncountable nouns.

·        Difficulty with determiners, gender, pronouns.

·        Difficulty with word order.

·        Difficulty with the gerund, the passive, the conditional, transitive and intransitive, auxiliaries, tag questions, modals, idioms (‘avoidance of small verbs’ as Swan and Smith  describe).

Newbrook (1991) suggests that it is ‘unrealistic’ and even undesirable that Hong Kong could develop a local standard English of its own. The salient features of local English usage differentiate it from all the mainstream standard varieties of the language whilst there is a tendency for such varieties to become closer. The emergence of a local standard would, he argues, make the attempts of local students to master Standard English all the more difficult. English is not sufficiently well grasped at present nor is it used widely enough for a sure basis of deviance from Standard English to emerge.  Moreover local deviant forms simply create unintelligibility.

Gail Fu (1975 and writing in Lord 1987) has wide experience of teaching in Hong Kong and identifies many of the ‘difficulties’ successfully but she does not mention Hong Kong English, choosing to give a few characteristics of ‘mixing’ (difficulty with ‘v’  and ‘th’ sounds, using ‘although’ and ‘but’ in the same sentence,  scrambling sentences, failure to deal with question tags) which  are due to interference from Cantonese.

Luke and Richards (1982), although proposing boldly, and for reasons which we shall presently examine, that ‘there is no such thing as Hong Kong English’ (in their definition of the term) nevertheless give, in an appendix, ‘typical features of a ‘mid- proficiency’ speaker of English in Hong Kong’ in respect of phonetics and phonology.  A pattern may be emerging from these two studies alone.  Bolton and Kwok (1988) argue with Luke and Richards, finding their findings of ‘diglossia without bilingualism’ to be outdated: increasingly, Hong Kong people exhibit a specific Hong Kong English accent which has certain marked features: strong vowel interference from Cantonese; substitution, non-release, deletion and simplification of consonant clusters and devoicing voiced consonants.  There are also features from American English in pronunciation.  In intonation, Hong Kong speakers of English exhibit certain patterns which are dissimilar to RP English: a high-rising intonation for all questions including neutral wh- questions,  each syllable is separate, weak and strong syllable  differentiation is levelled (‘especially between content words  and function words’), reiterated elements continue to be  stressed and accent shift is not marked when emphasis is  intended.  Bolton and Kwok have a similar view of language code-switching as Gibbons and refer to this switching in terms of focussing or diffusion.  In their model, Hong Kong English lies on a diffusion to focussing continuum between Cantonese- English Mix and Standard English English and receives some input from Standard American English.  The linguistic process involved is defined, in the Hong Kong English slot, as  ‘Localised features of English: lexical, grammatical, phonological,’ and is set between ‘Approximation to Language norms’ (Standard English English) and ‘Admixture of English words and phrases - code mixing’ (Cantonese-English Mix).  Gibbons, as we shall see, has an additional variety which he calls ‘English-with-Cantonese’.

Two interesting points in the whole discussion of ‘Hong Kong English’ are made by Bolton and Kwok when they point out, firstly, that: ‘ Cantonese is not a fully codified variety and... subject to a great deal of variation at a number of different levels.’  The ‘standard’ tongue for Cantonese speakers is not Formal Cantonese but Standard Written Chinese. The standard of written Chinese and of Putonghua is a cause of concern in Hong Kong.  As there appears to be no norm for ‘good Cantonese’, norms for ‘good English’ may appear strange to Cantonese learners.

Secondly, quoting sociolinguistic sources, they point to the identity factor in the choice, of a Hong Kong accent: ‘In simple terms, many Hong Kong speakers of English, therefore, may model their speech forms not on native-speaker stereotypes in North America or Britain but on the speech of educated bilinguals in Hong Kong.’

The emergence of a Hong Kong identity (cf. Lau and Kuan (1988)) as opposed to a Chinese or a pseudo/colonial-British identity, they suggest, leads to a strengthening of the Hong Kong linguistic identity in English: ‘the use of Hong Kong features of speech were also related to affirmation of a Hong Kong identi­ty.’  Moreover, an investigation of attitudes of Hong Kong people towards Hong Kong English reveals that: ‘a substantial number of respondents displayed an overtly positive attitude to models of English associated with local bilinguals.  Some Hong Kong men, it appears, do indeed wish to speak like ‘Hong Kong Men’.  We will speculate about this strengthening of specific identity in our conclusion to this section.  One question presents itself in connection with this line of research:  are we dealing with a strengthening of specific identity or the exclusion of other identities and cultural influences?  Are the two processes one and the same process? An emergence of a specific identity which is hostile to the outside may contrib­ute to the formation of a local variety of a second language but may increase the likelihood of instrumental motivation  (or in TA terms a Not-OK learning position) in second language acquisition  (which we would argue is not the most efficient orientation.) A parallel in this respect may be drawn with the strong dialect consciousness of the German Swiss: some of my students resolutely refused to take up a  ‘foreign accent’.   They wished to sound like Swiss, even when they spoke English and thus retained features from Swiss German: singing intonation, hard consonants, the -ch sound replacing k and so on.  The same thinking led to the development of the infamous ‘Francais Federal’, the Swiss German form of French.  Even within their own country, the Swiss German does not want to be identified as ‘Welsch’ (from the Suisse Romande).

U-GAY-WAH

An interesting sociolinguistic analysis of Hong Kong language use is attempted by Gibbons (1979 and 1987).  The first work was a study of the mixed language of Hong Kong students which 
is often referred to by the layman as ‘Chinglish’ (see Chalkley (1979) above).  It is better understood, argues Gibbons, as a MIX (a term he uses in the later work, cf. Kachru’s study of Indian English ‘Mixing’ 1986)) of Cantonese and English, with Cantonese as the predominant base. Gibbons analyses the languages used by a sample of students at Hong Kong University and identifies six categories of language, none of which is referred to as ‘Hong Kong English’: Cantonese, MIX, English-with-Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Hakka.

Indeed, Gibbons only uses the term in his final speculations  (p.125), without defining it closely. (‘English’ too is not clearly defined, it being identified by one assistant native speaker, albeit an experienced language teacher in Hong Kong who is now head of the Polytechnic English Department.)

‘Hong Kong English’ is seen as a linguistic manifestation with a Western association (Cantonese being linked to Chinese culture and MIX a manifestation of Hong Kong modern culture.)  It is speculated that there may arise ‘a Hong Kong culture and language’ in which these linguistic and cultural elements combine ‘in a distinctive fashion’.  There would then be a distinctive ‘Hong Kong language’ which is not the same as a Hong Kong English, but which would incorporate elements from English.

In his analysis of MIX, Gibbons evades a fundamental question of language analysis in Hong Kong - is there such a thing as Hong Kong English?  The categories of ‘English’ and ‘English-with-Cantonese’ are not defined and consequently quite useless.

IS THERE A HONG KONG ENGLISH IN LITERATURE ?

Chan (1989) - amongst a great deal of sub-racist, sub-feminist invective - analyses perhaps the most famous character in all Hong Kong fiction: Suzie Wong. Suzie Wong’s speech, like her personality, is a caricature: l replaces r, her grammar resembles pidgin, she imitates Chinese in word order, nearly always uses the simple present tense and leaves out articles. Is the caricature ‘Hong Kong English’? Certainly, her language variation is not stable as Suzie is quite proficient in a  ‘Standard’ English by the end of the novel.

Does she improve her erroneous English or does she adapt her legitimate Hong Kong variety to her lover’s?  She probably does neither: the author, suggests Chan, changes her speech in order not to irritate the reader.  Writers of fiction are not linguistic observers after all and their ‘record’ of Hong Kong English should be treated with caution.

Geoffrey Thursby’s novel Miller (1983) is a more recent case in point. Can anyone imagine any Chinese house servant speaking consistently thus:

“Master drinkee very quickly,” said Ah Ling, coming in from the kitchen with another bottle of frost-cold Carlsberg on a tray.  “Yes,” said Miller, “ it’s lovely, beautiful, and Ah Ling, I’ll be going to - er, a barbecue on Saturday night.” “Master little old for bar-be-cue?” said Ah Ling. “ I thought children eat bar-be-cue on beach.  Plenty mosquito! Miller laughed. “Never mind the mosquitoes, Ah Ling.  Never mind about the children, either.  I’m going to a barbecue.”

“Yes, master.  All-lighty, master.”

“And, Ah Ling?”

“Yes, master”

“Bring me another cold Carlsberg.”

“Ai Yah!  All-lighty, master.”     (page 143)

or as in the following:

“Chinese people say, if man drinkee too much, he must take PLENTY water, before he go to bed.  I don’t think you take PLENTY water before you go bed, master.”

“No, Ah Ling,” said Miller, “maybe, not enough water.”

“PLENTY sore head?” said Ah Ling.  (page 61)

The main objection to be made here is that a speaker who has mastered the conditional (which does not exist in Chinese) would be more accurate in pronunciation and grammar.  The error with PLENTY is not typical of Hong Kong speakers of English (in fact it is quite a rare expression like ‘a few’).  The other Chinese characters in the story all have perfect English with no deviation from Standard English.

A similar procedure is adopted by Christopher New in “ The ChineseBox” (1975).  Moreover, the main European character speaks fluent Cantonese so all the conversations held in Chinese are  ‘translated’ into straightforward English.  Amongst his morose post-Existentialist nihilism, New writes an evocative description of a certain kind of Chinese intonation:

‘She spoke English without elision or slurs, so that each word sounded precise and distinct, like pieces falling into predetermined places in some intricate pattern.’ (p.16)

Chan (1989) claims that no more than a few good works of fiction have been written in English by Hong Kong writers of English.
 Timothy Mo cannot claim to be a second language writer of English (and his novels are not set in present-day Hong Kong) and ‘can barely speak Cantonese’. Han Su-yin is similar. Lee Ding-fai, who, according to Chan, perusing a Heinemann brochure,’ the only writer listed who fulfills the criteria of being a local Hong Kong Chinese and writing about Hong Kong in English’ is said to be a political writer primarily (a judgement not borne out by consideration of the text). Her English is straightforward Standard. Chan writes that: ‘Generally speaking, published writers who have written about Hong Kong as opposed to merely mentioning the place in passing as any other bit of Oriental exotica, tend to be Anglo-Americans, native users of English.’

Their record of Hong Kong English is not Hong Kong Literary English.  Their record of spoken Hong Kong English is stilted. My own views on Hong Kong English writing are presented in Adams  (1992b) by means of a cynical and provocative assertion by a character in the story In The Ghetto:

‘It was clear that most Hong Kong fiction was well-constructed satire on cheap writing. This was Hong Kong’s greatest achievement: imitation, reproduction and satire.’ (Adams 1992b:210).

The point I try to make is that the literary imagination employed by writers of ‘Hong Kong literature’ is often poor. The quality of the writing - characterisation, dialogue, imitation of native speech idiosyncrasies - follows suit. In poor literature, stereotypes like the Suzie Wong character are also poor and should not be taken seriously as an attitude towards Chinese women or towards Chinese speakers of English. No one  - Chinese or European - gets a good deal in bad literature. Constructing theories on bad evidence is pointless.

Edwin Thumboo, the most famous of Singapore’s many poets, (writing in Lowenberg 1988) sees ‘the horizontal and vertical embedding’ of English within a nation thus:

“Some are born into a language; others have it thrust upon them; succeeding generations achieve it; and those succeeding them are then born into it.  A cycle starts, gathers momentum and cumulatively affects the shape of English and the other languages involved.”  (Lowenberg p. 363)

The question raised here is, firstly, what sort of ‘cycle’ started in Hong Kong when English was ‘thrust upon’ the Chinese in 1841?  Certainly, ‘the other languages involved’, primarily Cantonese, were affected by English.  A recent handbook of Cantonese (Kwan 1989) features a list of 114 common loanwords from English (e.g. taxi, baby, salad, humour, guitar, cash, tips, vitamin). (cf. Chan and Kwok (1985) for an analysis of the very  limited impact of Chinese on English). Hong Kong people did not become bilingual in any great numbers in any real sense until recently (and the term ‘diglossia’ is preferred to  ‘bilingualism’). English has always been an outsider’s language, I think, and the link with the Great Chinese Central Cultural Tradition is stronger in Hong Kong in some respects because of its contact with the West. Christopher New (1975), writing about the distance between Chinese and Westerner in Hong Kong, remarks:

‘ Western education seemed to create, or at least widen, the gap rather than narrow it.  Perhaps because it weakened confidence in the existing culture, the native self.’ (pp. 21-22)

An interesting conclusion is reached by Kuiper and Tan (1987) who found that Singapore English and Singapore Hokkien were not used in a process of ‘cultural switching’ but rather that they had the same cultural base.  This is probably true of Hong Kong English and Cantonese. The peculiarities of Hong Kong English derive partly from HKE/Cantonese’s single cultural system, rather than a super-imposition, switching, confusion, amalgam etc. of both  ‘Western’ and Cantonese systems. English is being used in a way which does not fit Cantonese Chinese cultural assumptions.  The oddity of some Hong Kong English is partially accounted for by this adjustment to the usual ‘code-switching’ argument.

Contact with English has led in Hong Kong to a polarisation of cultural positions, and for the the Chinese, exaggerated attachment to the Cultural Tradition. Hong Kong people are also, in a sense, ‘offshore’ and this has led to nostalgic romanticisation: after all, there is no more loyal patriot than an expatriate.  There is no sense in which Hong Kong people see English as part of their affective innate identity. Important accompaniments of language adoption: acculturation and cultural

transfer, have probably been deficient in Hong Kong.  ‘Cross-cultural adaptation’ (Young, 1988) has been minimal. Many Hong Kong people are first second or third generation immigrants. As Giles and Johnson (1981) find, second language competence is negatively related to the strength of identification with one’s own ethnic group. Again, the comparison with Singapore is interesting. Lee Kwan Yew, speaking in his December 1977 address to the University of Singapore Political Association, referred to English as ‘ a neutral instrument which all racial and dialect groups can learn to use with no unfair bias’.  English has rarely been a neutral instrument in Hong Kong, associated as it is, in many people’s minds, with wealth, power, success and the ruling elite (see Adams, 1990a). It is difficult to maintain the position of Smith (1987) in Hong Kong, however true it may be in general:

‘English... can be used by anyone as a means to express any cultural heritage and any value system.  Using English does not make one a different person.  There is no need to become more  ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’ in order to use it well.’

An important condition for true adoption of English, which is the first stage of its becoming a true non- native variety, is in its use as a tool of culture (see Noss 1983 p.74), in which it is used ‘to express culturally determined networks of activities’ which are typical of Hong Kong.  This process is part of  ‘native transfer’ in which the richness of a native language and society is superimposed on English.  The process of ‘trans­fer’ in Hong Kong has been predominantly from English into Chinese.  Hong Kong people have not felt the need, or been in a position of relatedness to the language, to express themselves affectively, freely and positively in English.

Has any Hong Kong writer of English felt so drawn to poetic expression in the language as Goh Poh Seng of Singapore:

                   Words, words to weave

                     Into prose, into verse,

                     Varied as life,

                     As the weather,

                     The August sun

                     The dark December rains

                     Each valid in its own temper,

                     Movement, rhyme and rhythm.

                     (from Lines From Batu Ferringh)

CONCLUSION

We have seen that the classification of New Englishes, and Non-Native Varieties is fraught with difficulty.  Hong Kong English does not fit neatly into the category of New Englishes and when we speak of a Non-Native Variety, the question arises ‘Who are the speakers?’  There are some speakers of Hong Kong English but there is a greater number of examples of an‘idiosyncratic transitory system’ (Spolsky 1989) usually referred to as a learner variety or interlanguage.  Spolsky speaks in terms of ‘social status’ being required for a variety of a foreign or second language to be recognised and be given ‘its own label’.  This is a point similar to Quirk’s concept (1988) of the variety being ‘institutionalised’. 

Although the variety of English known as Hong Kong English, when it is identified from faulty or defective interlanguage and this is no easy task, is not officially, or unofficially, sanctioned, it exists in some form in the utterances of all but a handful of Hong Kong speakers if we bear in mind the patterns  of  phonological and grammatical deviation mentioned above.  It is, for our purposes, one of the factors of eliminationwhich we must bear in mind when attempting to identify and assess error, which we have termed a symptom of difficulty.

I do not claim that Hong Kong English is an explicit variety of English.  Kachru’s stages of development may not be applicable at all.  Rather we could speak of a deep structured phenomenon which generates features as yet sporadically and without uniformity.

It is perfectly true to say in Hong Kong today that nobody wants or recognises Hong Kong English.  I believe, however, that such a phenomenon exists (not in the sense of it being a New English); that it is suppressed and latent for many learners/users; and that its recognition, and furtherance, would be, and would have been, a tremendously vitalizing step on the way to the improvement of the overall standard of English in Hong Kong. 

It might contribute to a relaxation in learning and teaching, for example.

Hong Kong English exists. The fact that it is not recognised, because of psychological, sociological difficulties in learner, teacher and the background situation is a major difficulty  in the development of English in Hong Kong and ultimately a diffi­culty for the individual learner.

He is never encouraged to develop his own variety of the ‘broad church’ of English varieties, to make English his own.  English, for him, he is told by his society, is a language of the foreigner and he may only use it in imitation of the foreigner.

This is why English in Hong Kong will probably remain a foreign language, especially when the post-1997 government will have, in effect, such isolationist policies and traditions whatever attitude it takes up: distance from the PRC or control by the same.  The possible role of English as being a token of separate identity from the PRC is one which has few supporters at present and thus distance from the PRC will probably not emphasise English ability. Control by the PRC will involve importing more Mandarin (although this has not had the effect in Guangdong which Beijing wanted, according to Iu (1983)) and the accompanying backward teaching attitudes, techniques and poli­cies of the PRC. The effects on English acquisition will be damaging even if local government, and personal, attitudes are good and motivation is high.

If there is no great certainty that Hong Kong English exists as a separate and recognizable phenomenon at present and what we identify as an errors or difficulty are most likely just that and

not evidence of a legitimate separate variety of English, our attention might profitably turn to the reasons for the peculiar difficulties encountered in the learning and teaching of English by local teachers and students. Before we do so, some outline of our general approach to education and to TEFL is appropriate and the next section focuses on these questions.