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…

This paper reports on a comprehensive corpus-based study of regional and stylistic variation in the distribution of the English present perfect. The data represents ten English varieties of both the Inner Circle and Outer Circle, covering four major text types: conversation, news reportage, academic and fictional writing. The results are discussed…

This paper reports on an investigation into the international intelligibility of the English of educated Hong Kong speakers whose L1 is Cantonese. Samples of recordings of extended discourse obtained from three female and three male final-year English majors studying at the Hong Kong Institute of Education were played to groups of university…

Discusses a number of issues involved in a description of a variety of English in relation to the distinctive vocabulary of Hong Kong English. Attention to semantic and pragmatic relationships internal to the variety and the sociocultural context in which it operates is urged. (Author/VWL)

Compares the linguistic acceptability of the various forms of "need" in non-assertive contexts (i.e. in interrogatives and negatives) between two speech communities: Australians as native speakers of English, and Hong Kong people as second or foreign language learners of English. (Author/VWL)

Surveys the sociolinguistic background to the recognition of Hong Kong English and considers the arguments in favor of a paradigm shift in approaches to these issues. Reviews the history of English in Hong Kong and language planning and language policies in the late colonial period. Makes the case for recognition of Hong Kong English with…

Discusses findings in the first part of a research project on Hong Kong English (HKE) phonology, including the underlying phonemic system of HKE speakers. Subjects were 15 undergraduates at Hong Kong Baptist University. Using spectrographic analysis, it was found that the typical HKE speaker operates with a considerably smaller set of vowel and…

Discusses relative clauses in Hong Kong English and considers questions about its morphosyntactic feature system, comparing relevant attestations from local data to those found in other varieties of English. Examines ways relative constructions in Cantonese may affect how relative clauses in Hong Kong English are formed and how the relative clause…

Suggests that Hong Kong English, as it varies from standard English, has not achieved wide acceptance in the community. Approaches this issue by investigating the attitudes of Hong Kong's English language teachers. Analyzed over 1000 messages on language issues on a computer network for English teachers, focusing on discourse and sources of…