While language is clearly an important aspect of (labor) migration, there have not been many contemplations and interrogations, although truly compelling and necessary, on language varieties and their place and position in labor migration and transnational work in the contemporary world, and hence why we intend to do so in this article. In our…

This essay emerges from an ongoing conversation between us while collaborating on various projects that have explored the role that English plays in people's lives. One of us is an English teacher educator from Australia, the other an EFL educator from Iran now working in Hong Kong. Our conversation prompted us to reflect on English as a medium of…

Greater China is used in this article to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Macao. While a holistic approach is adopted to present and compare the rapid spread of English and development in English language education in these geographically close, and sociopolitically, culturally and economically interrelated but hugely…

One of the dominant themes of the literature on language in Hong Kong is the belief that English, particularly its spoken form, plays a limited role in the lives of the territory's mainly Cantonese-speaking Chinese community. For this reason, it is argued, there is no societal basis for the development of a nativised variety of English. One of the…

A discussion of the teaching of English for academic purposes (EAP) focuses on criticism that the content of such courses is thin and that they are offered as a service to other disciplines. It is proposed that the emphasis of EAP instruction be shifted to the role English plays as a medium for conveying meaning to the ways in which English is…

Focuses on the role of English and the evolution of a distinct variety of English in Hong Kong. Discusses this "emerging" Hong Kong English and examines how various political changes might affect a future Hong Kong identity, such that Hong Kong English might emerge into a public as well as academic reality. (23 references) (Author/CK)

A study analyzed patterns of usage of political vocabulary in Hong Kong English as found in newspaper reports of a leading Hong Kong English-medium newspaper and two other English-medium newspapers. Data were drawn from a computerized corpus and a clippings file. The report begins with an overview of the theoretical basis of the study of ideology…