Journal articles on the topic 'Hong Kong fiction (Cantonese)'
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Yung, Faye Dorcas. "The Silencing of Children's Literature Publishing in Hong Kong." International Research in Children's Literature 13, Supplement (July 2020): 159–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ircl.2020.0344.
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Children's literature publishing in Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy the freedom of a free market economy and legal autonomy. However, the market structure and the titles available in the market dominated by imported titles reveal that children's books published in Hong Kong have little room to feature the local voice. The market conditions are tough and publishers are incentivised to publish for the larger Sinosphere market. As a result, Cantonese is absent in imported texts annotated with either Mandarin phonetics ruby characters in Hanyu Pinyin or Zhuyin symbols. Non-fiction picturebooks feature a version of history that is biased towards the Chinese Communist Party political rhetoric. Hong Kong subjectivity thus struggles to find space to be represented; usually it is found in publications by smaller independent publishers.
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Tsoi, Ling Yu. "Translation of Hollywood film titles: Implications of Culture-Specific Items in Greater China." TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies 14, no. 1 (September 22, 2022): 70–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.21992/tc29563.
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In view of the lack of updated analysis on film title translation in Greater China, the present study attempted to investigate translation of culture-specific items in Hollywood film titles among three regions of Greater China: Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. From 1989 to 2018, a film title database was built, comprising of 2472 source texts and over 7410 target texts. Culture-specific items were identified and classified into five themes, namely toponym; anthroponym and fictional character; forms of entertainment; means of transportation; and social taboos. Analysis was in two tiers: First, translation methods under each theme was compared within target regions. Second, corresponding cultural implications of the three target regions were discussed using the concept of glocalisation. In a translational perspective, adaptation was highly favoured by Hong Kong under film title translation, whereas transliterations and literal translations were preferred by Mainland China. In a cultural perspective, both Mainland China and Hong Kong were found to preserve local cultures via translation. While Mainland China attempted to protect the purity of Chinese language through using transliterations and literal translations, Hong Kong used Cantonese slangs and jargons to replace culture-specific items in source text. Different from the former regions, Taiwan adopted exotic and explicit translation of social taboos. The present research sheds new light on Translation Studies research by analyzing film title translation in a sociocultural perspective, and thus can offer stakeholders in the film industry to appreciate translation in another perspective.
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Sautman, Barry, and Xinyi Xie. "Today in Guangzhou, Tomorrow in Hong Kong? A Comparative Study of the Language Situation in Two Cities." Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 49, no. 2 (August 2020): 207–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1868102620983939.
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Many in Hong Kong voice concerns about the fate of Cantonese, including nativists (“localists”) and the general public. Guangzhou is seen as a harbinger of diminishing Cantonese in Hong Kong. News and commentaries paint a gloomy picture of Cantonese in Guangzhou. Yet rarely do we read about surveys on the range of Cantonese use and identity in Guangzhou. Neither do we see analyses on how the social context differences between Hong Kong and Guangzhou may have contributed to the two cities’ unique language situations. Our study delineates the Guangzhou and Hong Kong language situations, comparing mother tongues, ordinary languages, and language attitudes. Cantonese is unrivalled in Hong Kong and remains vital in Guangzhou. We put the two cities’ different use frequency and proficiency of Cantonese and Putonghua (“Mandarin”) in the sociocultural context of motivation and migration. We conclude that some claims of diminishing Cantonese are unsupported. We also address how likely it is that Cantonese will diminish or even be replaced in Hong Kong.
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Zee, Eric. "Chinese (Hong Kong Cantonese)." Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21, no. 1 (June 1991): 46–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025100300006058.
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The style of speech illustrated is that typical of the educated younger generation in Hong Kong. The recording is that of a 22-year-old female university student who has lived all her life in Hong Kong.
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Yee Ho, Judy Woon. "Code choice in Hong Kong." Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31, no. 2 (January 1, 2008): 18.1–18.17. http://dx.doi.org/10.2104/aral0818.
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China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. Since then drastic changes in this former British colony have occurred. One of these changes is a shift in language policy, from bilingualism (Cantonese and English) to trilingualism (Cantonese, English and Putonghua). The present study is aimed at investigating tertiary students’ use of Cantonese, English and Putonghua on a daily basis, analysing the roles and functions of each language and discussing how these may impact on language policy and language education. Research instruments included 52 students’ language diaries and written analyses, 51 hours of audio-recordings of verbal exchanges, and focus group semi-structured interviews. Results show that the students’ speech repertoire mainly consists of two languages: Cantonese and English and their various mixes. Cantonese is used to ensure understanding, consolidate solidarity and maintain social cohesion. The English-Cantonese mix has become a more powerful identity marker for educated people in Hong Kong than pure Cantonese. English and its supplement with Cantonese are often used in the domain of education. The majority of students seldom use Putonghua in everyday life, but there is a strong instrumental motivation to learn it. Measures are suggested to facilitate a more successful move from bilingualism to trilingualism.
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Yee Ho, Judy Woon. "Code choice in Hong Kong." Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31, no. 2 (2008): 18.1–18.17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aral.31.2.05yee.
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China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. Since then drastic changes in this former British colony have occurred. One of these changes is a shift in language policy, from bilingualism (Cantonese and English) to trilingualism (Cantonese, English and Putonghua). The present study is aimed at investigating tertiary students’ use of Cantonese, English and Putonghua on a daily basis, analysing the roles and functions of each language and discussing how these may impact on language policy and language education.Research instruments included 52 students’ language diaries and written analyses, 51 hours of audio-recordings of verbal exchanges, and focus group semi-structured interviews. Results show that the students’ speech repertoire mainly consists of two languages: Cantonese and English and their various mixes. Cantonese is used to ensure understanding, consolidate solidarity and maintain social cohesion. The English-Cantonese mix has become a more powerful identity marker for educated people in Hong Kong than pure Cantonese. English and its supplement with Cantonese are often used in the domain of education. The majority of students seldom use Putonghua in everyday life, but there is a strong instrumental motivation to learn it. Measures are suggested to facilitate a more successful move from bilingualism to trilingualism.
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Zhang, Jingwei. "Tone mergers in Cantonese." Regional Chinese in Contact 5, no. 1 (June 13, 2019): 28–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aplv.18007.zha.
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Abstract This study investigates tone mergers in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong, Macao, and Zhuhai. From these three cities, 150 native Cantonese speakers were recruited, stratified by gender and age. Acoustic analyses show that Hong Kong Cantonese and Macao Cantonese are actively merging T2[25] and T5[23], T3[33] and T6[22], thus becoming similar to Zhuhai Cantonese in tonal inventory. The social motivations of the changes are attributed to contact among these Cantonese-speaking communities as well as their contact with Putonghua. Responses to a questionnaire on language use in different domains shows the spread of Putonghua in Hong Kong and Macao and seems to correlate with the advance of the tone mergers. More specifically, the spread of Putonghua in Hong Kong seems to be rolling back the effects of Cantonese standardization, as shown by the tone mergers in the youngest generation in Hong Kong.
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Gao, Yihong, Xinchun Su, and Lei Zhou. "Pre-handover language attitudes in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Guangzhou." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 10, no. 1 (June 26, 2000): 135–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/japc.10.1.08gao.
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In May 1997, a matched guise test was conducted on 304 college students in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Guangzhou. The stimulus material was presented in 4 guises: Cantonese, English, Putonghua, and Putonghua with Cantonese accent. Major findings: (1) What distinguished Hong Kong subjects’ sociolinguistic identity was not Cantonese, English or Putonghua as found in previous studies, but Putonghua with Cantonese accent. In light of Brewer’s (1991) optimal distinctiveness theory, this would suggest parallel needs of “being Chinese” and “being Hongkongers.” (2) Guangzhou was closer to Beijing rather than to Hong Kong in language attitudes. The cutting boundary appeared between the mainland and Hong Kong, not between Cantonese-speaking and non-Cantonese-speaking communities.
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Tse, Holman. "Vowel shifts in Cantonese?" Regional Chinese in Contact 5, no. 1 (June 13, 2019): 67–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aplv.19001.tse.
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Abstract This paper addresses Labov’s principles of vowel chain shifting in Toronto and Hong Kong Cantonese based on sociolinguistic interviews from the Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Project. The analysis is based on normalized F1 and F2 values of 33,179 vowel tokens from 11 monophthongs produced by 32 speakers (8 from Hong Kong, 24 from Toronto). In Toronto, results show retraction of [y] by generation but fronting of [i] by age. In Hong Kong, age is a significant predictor for the lowering of [ɪ], [ʊ], [ɔ], and for the fronting of [ɔ] and [i]. Overall, there is more vowel shifting in Hong Kong than in Toronto and the shifting is consistent with Labov’s Principles.
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Bauer, Robert S. "Cantonese as written language in Hong Kong." Global Chinese 4, no. 1 (March 26, 2018): 103–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/glochi-2018-0006.
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AbstractA unique potpourri of historical, political, social, cultural, and linguistic factors have all influenced the development of the Hong Kong Cantonese language so that it has emerged into a distinctive, independent form of Chinese; while it most certainly shares features with other Chinese languages, nonetheless, it can be described as separate, different, and special. Hong Kong Cantonese and Putonghua are two mutually-unintelligible languages. The Cantonese language is not simply the standard Chinese characters plus their Cantonese pronunciations. One of the most distinctive characteristics of Hong Kong Cantonese that sets it apart from all other regional Chinese languages is its highly conventionalized written form that is being widely used throughout this speech community. What we clearly observe is that Hong Kong Cantonese-speakers are transcribing with Chinese characters and even English letters the lexicon and grammar of their Cantonese speech; this practice was precisely expressed by Huang Zunxian 黃遵憲 of the late Qing dynasty in his phrase《我手寫我口》(ngo5 sau2 se2 ngo5 hau2)The Cantonese romanization employed here is called Jyutping, i.e., 粵語拼音 jyut6 jyu5 ping3 jam1 which was devised by the Linguistics Society of Hong Kong (2002). Appendix 1 below has compared this romanization system with the corresponding IPA symbols. Mandarin pronunciation is romanized inPīnyīn., literally, ‘my hand writes my mouth’, i.e.I write the way I speak. This must be appreciated as no mean feat, given the lack of formal standardization, along with the fact that Cantonese-speaking schoolchildren are not explicitly taught to read and write Cantonese but learn to do so informally and indirectly through exposure to its pervasive use. In other words, in Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking children have acquired their Cantonese speech in the usual way from their parents and peers but without ever learning how to read or write its written form; and, up until relatively recently, they went to school to learn how to read and write a language, that is, standard Chinese/Putonghua, which they did not speak (this situation has been changing as an increasing number of schools have switched over to using Putonghua as their medium of instruction over the past 15 years or so). Not surprisingly, the combination of standard Chinese characters used in non-standard ways with uniquely Cantonese (nonstandard, dialectal) characters and English letters in a text of written Cantonese renders it almost unintelligible to Putonghua speakers from mainland China and Taiwan.Five processes can be observed operating in written Cantonese: viz., traditional usage of the standard Chinese characters, as well as their phoneticization, indigenization, semanticization, and alphabeticization (through intimate contact with English). Related to these five processes are 12 basic principles that underlie written Cantonese. In combination together these processes and principles provide us with the means for systematically analyzing written Cantonese. In order to promote the eventual standardization of written Cantonese, this study has identified two main problems of variation in the transcription of Cantonese lexical items that still require appropriate resolution.
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Bauer, Robert S. "Written Cantonese of Hong Kong." Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale 17, no. 2 (1988): 245–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/clao.1988.1272.
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Bauer, Robert S. "WRITTEN CANTONESE OF HONG KONG." Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 17, no. 2 (March 12, 1988): 245–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/19606028-90000305.
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Dans une première partie, sont examinés les rapports du cantonais écrit avec les différents registres du cantonais parlé, en particulier sur le plan lexical, ainsi que l'impact du vocabulaire anglais.La deuxième partie analyse des textes de cantonais écrit afin d'en identifier les conventions orthographiques et les tendances favorisant l'apparition d'un syllabaire exploitant les valeurs phonétiques tant des caractères chinois que des lettres latines.La troisième partie décrit les contextes dans lesquels apparaît le cantonais écrit. Enfin la dernière partie étudie l'attitude de la communauté de Hong Kong vis-à-vis de l'avenir de la langue cantonaise après 1997.
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Zhang, Jingwei, Yanyong Zhang, and Daming Xu. "A variationist approach to tone categorization in Cantonese." Chinese Language and Discourse 10, no. 1 (July 12, 2019): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cld.18008.zha.
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Abstract This study examines tone mergers in Hong Kong Cantonese from the perspective of variationist sociolinguistics. It approaches the issue of whether Cantonese has six or nine tones by focusing on two ongoing tone mergers: (1) the merger of yin qu T3 and yang qu T6, and (2) the merger of lower yin ru T8 and yang ru T9. Speech data from fifty native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong were collected and analyzed. The change routes and constraint patterns of the two mergers were compared and found to be similar. The results support the six-tone system for Hong Kong Cantonese. This study serves as an example of how the variationist approach can be used in phonological debates.
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Kong, Anthony Pak-Hin, John Chan, Johnny King-L. Lau, Wai-Ling Bickerton, Brendan Weekes, and Glyn Humphreys. "Developing a Cantonese Version of Birmingham Cognitive Screen for Stroke Survivors in Hong Kong." Communication Disorders Quarterly 39, no. 3 (July 24, 2017): 387–401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1525740117720382.
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The Birmingham Cognitive Screen (BCoS) is a neuropsychological battery designed to assess impairment to a variety of cognitive domains including language in patients with brain injuries. Twenty-two stroke participants and 16 gender-, age-, and education-matched controls were recruited in Hong Kong. The stroke participants were administered HK-BCoS as well as standardized batteries of cognitive and language functions validated for the Cantonese-speaking population in Hong Kong, including the Cantonese version of the Western Aphasia Battery, Cantonese Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Hong Kong–Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Results showed that HK-BCoS demonstrated good concurrent validity with all standardized batteries. HK-BCoS could discriminate between cognitive impairments in stroke patients and normal participants. Furthermore, HK-BCoS was found to have excellent intrarater and interrater reliabilities, good test–retest reliability, and fair split-half reliability as judged according to international criteria. In sum, HK-BCoS is a valid and reliable tool for assessing cognitive processing in Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong.
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So, Lydia K. H. "Tonal Changes in Hong Kong Cantonese." Current Issues In Language and Society 3, no. 2 (August 1996): 186–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13520529609615467.
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Zee, Eric. "Phonological Changes in Hong Kong Cantonese." Current Issues In Language and Society 3, no. 2 (August 1996): 192–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13520529609615469.
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Leung, Bo-Wah. "Overview of research work of Prof. Leung on Cantonese opera in Hong Kong and Guangzhou." Impact 2021, no. 7 (September 14, 2021): 18–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.21820/23987073.2021.7.18.
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It is important to recognise and transmit the importance of traditional music. Professor Bo-Wah Leung, Research Centre for Transmission of Cantonese Opera, The Education University of Hong Kong, recognises the value of this and wants to establish improved methods of communicating the cultural importance of Cantonese opera and thereby inspiring an appreciation for this among the current generation of young people as well as future generations. Bo-Wah founded the Research Centre in 2018 and this is where he leads various research projects devoted to improving how teachers can impart the importance of traditional music onto their students. Currently, Leung is working on a project called National education as cultural education: developing students' Chinese cultural identity with learning and teaching Cantonese opera in Hong Kong and Guangdong, with a view to surveying the current state of teaching the genre in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and Guangdong and determining the extent to which students' Chinese cultural identity have been developed through learning the genre. Leung believes there are significant research gaps regarding Cantonese opera and he is exploring the transmission of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong through school music education, community education and higher education. In doing so, he is filling research gaps, including the transmission modes of apprenticeship and conservatory tradition; students' motivation about learning Cantonese opera; teachers' confidence and interest in teaching Cantonese opera; the undergraduate programme and curriculum for nurturing professional Cantonese opera artists; creativity of Cantonese opera artists; and informal learning in community settings.
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Shi, Dingxu. "Hong Kong written Chinese." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 16, no. 2 (October 12, 2006): 299–318. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/japc.16.2.09shi.
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Hong Kong written Chinese is the register used in government documents, serious literature and the formal sections of printed media. It is a local variation of Standard Chinese and has many special features in its lexicon, syntax and discourse. These features come from three distinctive sources: English, Cantonese and innovation. The main concern of this paper is which features come from English and how they are adopted. It is shown that Hong Kong written Chinese has a large number of English loan words, both localized and semi-localized ones, and quite a few calque forms from English. Some of its lexical items have undergone semantic shift under the influence of English or Cantonese. The most interesting characteristic of Hong Kong written Chinese is that a number of its words have changed their syntactic behavior due to English influence and a few syntactic structures are apparently adopted from English. This particular form of written Chinese thus provides an excellent case to study the impact of bilingualism and multilingualism on language use and language change induced by language contact.
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Bolton, Kingsley, and Christopher Hutton. "Bad and banned language: Triad secret societies, the censorship of the Cantonese vernacular, and colonial language policy in Hong Kong." Language in Society 24, no. 2 (April 1995): 159–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500018571.
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ABSTRACTThe language of Chinese secret societies (“triads”) in Hong Kong can be studied by relating triad language to anti-languages, to taboo language, and to the status of the vernacular in sociolinguistic theory. Also examined here are the laws in Hong Kong concerning triad language, and the attitudes of government agencies charged with policing the media. One striking feature of the Hong Kong situation is that the use of triad jargon can in some circumstances constitute a serious criminal offense. However, triad language also appears to be a source of innovation, through the popular media, into mainstream Hong Kong Cantonese. Research on triad language is relevant to the relationship between colonialism and language control. (Cantonese, Hong Kong, colonialism, triad secret societies, censorship, vernacular, taboo language, criminal slang)
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Chan, Charlene Peishan. "“I Want to be More Hong Kong Than a Hongkonger”." Lifespans and Styles 6, no. 1 (May 24, 2020): 13–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.2218/ls.v6i1.2020.4398.
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The years leading up to the political handover of Hong Kong to Mainland China surfaced issues regarding national identification and intergroup relations. These issues manifested in Hong Kong films of the time in the form of film characters’ language ideologies. An analysis of six films reveals three themes: (1) the assumption of mutual intelligibility between Cantonese and Putonghua, (2) the importance of English towards one’s Hong Kong identity, and (3) the expectation that Mainland immigrants use Cantonese as their primary language of communication in Hong Kong. The recurrence of these findings indicates their prevalence amongst native Hongkongers, even in a post-handover context.
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Ran, Yunyun, Jeroen Van De Weijer, and Marjoleine Sloos. "Intonation in Hong Kong English and Guangzhou Cantonese-accented English: A Phonetic Comparison." Journal of Language Teaching and Research 11, no. 5 (September 1, 2020): 724. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1105.07.
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Hong Kong English is to a certain extent a standardized English variety spoken in a bilingual (English-Cantonese) context. In this article we compare this (native) variety with English as a foreign language spoken by other Cantonese speakers, viz. learners of English in Guangzhou (mainland China). We examine whether the notion of standardization is relevant for intonation in this case and thus whether Hong Kong English is different from Cantonese English in a wider perspective, or whether it is justified to treat Hong Kong English and Cantonese English as the same variety (as far as intonation is concerned). We present a comparison between intonational contours of different sentence types in the two varieties, and show that they are very similar. This shows that, in this respect, a learned foreign-language variety can resemble a native variety to a great extent.
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Li, David C. S. "Phonetic Borrowing." Written Language and Literacy 3, no. 2 (September 26, 2000): 199–233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/wll.3.2.02li.
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Chinese Hongkongers express themselves increasingly in written Cantonese, resulting in the proliferation of Cantonese elements in the Hong Kong Chinese press. To overcome the orthographic gap, Hongkongers resort to phonetic borrowing and phonetic compound formation. Phonetic borrowing may be based on modern standard Chinese or on English. Script mixing is very common, suggesting that linguistic convergence has taken place. Eighteen months after the British handover to the People’s Republic of China, this situation remains unchanged. Standardization of Cantonese is desirable, but will be difficult to enforce. Despite the vitality of written Cantonese in Hong Kong, this paper argues against promoting Cantonese to the status of an official language.
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Hung, Shin Fung. "From Singing “Out-of-Tone” to Creating Contextualized Cantonese Contemporary Worship Songs: Hong Kong in the Decentralization of Chinese Christianity." Religions 15, no. 6 (May 24, 2024): 648. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15060648.
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For over a century, Hong Kong Christians have sung Chinese hymns in an “out-of-tone” manner. Lyrics in traditional hymnals were translated or written to be sung in Mandarin, the national language, but most locals speak Cantonese, another Sinitic and tonal language. Singing goes “out-of-tone” when Mandarin hymns are sung in Cantonese, which often causes meaning distortions. Why did Hong Kong Christians accept this practice? How did they move from singing “out-of-tone” to creating contextualized Cantonese contemporary worship songs? What does this process reveal about the evolution of Chinese Christianity? From a Hong Kong-centered perspective, this article reconstructs the city’s hymnological development. I consider the creation of national Mandarin hymnals during Republican China as producing a nationalistic Mainland-centric and Mandarin-centric Chinese Christianity. Being on the periphery, Hong Kong Christians did not have the resources to develop their own hymns and thus continued to worship “out-of-tone”. With the decline of the old Chinese Christian center of Shanghai, the growth of Cantonese culture and Hongkonger identity, and the influence of Western pop and Christian music, local Christians began to create Cantonese contemporary worship songs. This hymnological contextualization reflects and contributes to not only the decolonization but, more importantly, the decentralization of Chinese Christianity.
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Choi, William, Xiuli Tong, and Helene Deacon. "From Cantonese Lexical Tone Awareness to Second Language English Vocabulary: Cross-Language Mediation by Segmental Phonological Awareness." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 62, no. 6 (June 19, 2019): 1875–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2019_jslhr-l-17-0323.
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Purpose Cantonese lexical tone awareness is closely associated with 1st language Cantonese vocabulary knowledge, but its role in 2nd language English vocabulary knowledge was unclear. We addressed this issue by investigating whether and, if so, how Cantonese lexical tone awareness contributes to English expressive vocabulary knowledge in Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual children. Method A sample of 112 Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual 2nd graders were tested on Cantonese lexical tone awareness, English lexical stress sensitivity, Cantonese– English segmental phonological awareness, and both Cantonese and English expressive vocabulary knowledge. Results Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that Cantonese lexical tone awareness contributed indirectly to English expressive vocabulary knowledge through English lexical stress sensitivity and Cantonese–English segmental phonological awareness. Conclusion These results demonstrate the role of Cantonese lexical tone awareness in Cantonese–English bilingual children's English vocabulary knowledge. This also underscores the importance of 1st language suprasegmental phonological awareness in 2nd language expressive vocabulary knowledge.
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McIntyre, Bryce T., Christine Wai Sum Cheng, and Zhang Weiyu. "Cantopop." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 12, no. 2 (December 31, 2002): 217–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/japc.12.2.03mci.
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In post-Handover Hong Kong, one sees an influx of cultural products from mainland China, from increased radio and television programming in Mandarin to the adoption of simplified Chinese characters in some publication venues. These are symbols of the resinicization of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Beijingers proudly assert that the Chinese capital is the cultural centre of China, and they look with a combination of curiosity and disdain on the popular culture of Hong Kong. With this steady influx into Hong Kong of culture emanating from the Chinese capital, and with the imperialistic attitude of Beijing elites, one might conclude that Cantonese popular culture is in serious decline. However, this is not the case. Through a descriptive study of Cantonese popular music or Cantopop, as it is known in the West this article argues that Cantonese culture is a unique and irrepressible cultural force in Greater China. Further, this article argues and this is the main point that Cantopop has served the role of a strategic cultural form to delineate a local Hong Kong identity, vis-à-vis the old British colonial and mainland Chinese identities. The article includes a brief history of Cantopop.
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Chan, Brian Hok-Shing. "Single-word English prepositions in Hong Kong Cantonese." Chinese Language and Discourse 9, no. 1 (August 27, 2018): 46–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cld.17013.cha.
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Abstract This paper proposes a structural borrowing account for a lexicogrammatical phenomenon whereby, in on ongoing Cantonese discourse, the use of a single-word English preposition triggers and activates an English construction, specifically an NP COP P NP sequence, and brings it into that discourse. The borrowed structure eventually converges with Cantonese, with the English preposition reanalyzed as a verb or a coverb. It is further suggested that these processes of structural borrowing and convergence are semantically motivated. Drawing on Cognitive Grammar, the borrowed structure np cop p np profiles a location as a relationship (whereas in Cantonese it is profiled as a thing by a postposition), and the pp (i.e., p np ) is profiled as a property of the subject or trajector (whereas in Cantonese a coverb phrase is always associated with a process). The converged constructions – in which an English preposition is reanalyzed as a verb or coverb – profile more dynamic and specific processes.
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Bauer, Robert S. "The expanding syllabary of Hong Kong cantonese." Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale 14, no. 1 (1985): 99–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/clao.1985.1169.
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Bauer, Robert S. "THE EXPANDING SYLLABARY OF HONG KONG CANTONESE." Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 14, no. 1 (December 15, 1985): 99–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/19606028_014_01-05.
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L'EXPANSION DU SYLLABAIRE DU CANTONAIS DE HONGKONGA partir de ses propres observations et de données recueillies dans la littérature, l'auteur dresse une liste des emprunts anglais en cantonais ayant pour résultat la création de syllabes qui jusque là n'existaient pas en cantonais. Trois types de nouvelles syllabes sont distingués: cellles creéés par recombinaison d'initiales et de finales déjà existantes; celles ayant une finale inédite; et celles violant en apparence la phonotactique cantonaise, comprenant deux consonnes labiales, ou ayant pour initiate un groupe muta + liquida. Les syllabes de ce dernier groupe sont en fait conformes à la phonotactique de vieux mots cantonais appartenant aux couches lexicales les moins littéraires: onomatopées etc. Ces syllabes, comme celles des deux premiers groupes forment des combinaisons segmentales autorisées par la phonotactique cantonaise, et dont l'inexistance était accidentelle.
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Ho, Adrian K., and Björn H. Jernudd. "Conversational repair in spoken Hong Kong Cantonese." Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 10, no. 2 (December 31, 2000): 205–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/japc.10.2.04ho.
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This paper examines the process and mechanism of conversational repair in spoken Hong Kong Cantonese. Levelt calls for accounts of conversational repair from diverse languages; this paper helps test his supposition that “the organization of repair is quite invariant across languages and cultures” (1989: 497). The paper also raises the hypothesis that personal and contextual factors are crucial variables which determine which type of repair will be socially acceptable (and therefore prominent) in a particular conversational setting.
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James, Gregory. "Cantonese particles in Hong Kong students' English e-mails." English Today 17, no. 3 (July 2001): 9–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266078401003029.
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With the popularisation of the Internet, the use of e-mails and computer-based chats (CBCs) has increased dramatically among university students. An interesting feature of such communication, however, is that a written medium is treated like speech (cf. Maynor, 1994). Conversations turn into notes where grammatical accuracy and conventional formalities take a backseat to instant communication. In the case of on-campus CBCs, informality and a certain disregard of the conventions of standard English are all the more manifest.It is commonly believed in Hong Kong that this general freedom to write ‘bad English’ has encouraged the habit of randomly incorporating Cantonese words into English e-mails. Yet an examination of students' e-mails and icq (‘I Seek You’) communications reveals that far from ‘polluting’ their English by substituting Cantonese words haphazardly for English ones, or by applying Cantonese structures to their English writing, students tend to incorporate certain kinds of Cantonese words systematically into their texts for specific identifiable purposes.
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S. Bauer, Robert. "The Hong Kong Speech Community’s Cantonese and Other Languages." Global Chinese 1, no. 1 (April 1, 2015): 27–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/glochi-2015-1002.
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Abstract The Hong Kong speech community distinguishes itself from others in China by predominantly speaking Cantonese, a South China regional variety which is mutually unintelligible with Putonghua (or Mandarin), China’s official, national language. While Hong Kong is officially (but ambiguously) bilingual in 中文 ‘Chinese’ and 英文 ‘English’, yet simply in terms of its numbers of speakers, social domains in which it is spoken, and deliberate choice by the broadcast media, Cantonese unquestionably serves as Hong Kong’s de facto official spoken language. Other Chinese varieties (or dialects) and non-Chinese languages are spoken in the community, although the numbers of their speakers are relatively small. For both pedagogical and political reasons, schools have been switching from Cantonese mother-tongue instruction to Putonghua. Other language-education issues being addressed by the authorities are demands by Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities to learn to read and write standard Chinese through a comprehensive curriculum for Chinese as a second language and an end to segregated schools.
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Tse, Priscilla. "“One Opera, Two Nationalisms”: Negotiating Hong Kong Identity and Chinese Nationalism in Cantonese Opera." Asian Theatre Journal 40, no. 2 (September 2023): 381–402. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/atj.2023.a912921.
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Abstract: While scholarly attention on nationalism of recent Hong Kong sheds light mostly on social movements, social media, and cinema, the performative role of yueju (Cantonese opera), as a Chinese vernacular theatre, in post-1997 Hong Kong is often neglected. This case study examines how different ideologies, political consciousness, and cultural ideals come into conflict and are mediated within the Cantonese opera circle since the 2014 Umbrella Movement. By investigating both the top-down and bottom-up approaches of propaganda as well as the potential of performing the opera as pro-democracy activism, this essay interrogates the dynamics between the hegemonic Chinese nationalism and the rising political consciousness of seeing Hong Kong as a separate entity.
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Lau, Tammy H. M., Kathy Y. S. Lee, Emily Y. C. Lam, Joffee H. S. Lam, Chris K. M. Yiu, and Gladys W. L. Tang. "Oral Language Performance of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students in Mainstream Schools." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 24, no. 4 (April 9, 2019): 448–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enz012.
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Abstract In Hong Kong, students are expected to speak fluent Cantonese, Putonghua, and English. However, the curriculum does not include Cantonese studies, as children are expected to have already acquired Cantonese by the age of school entry. This study examined the language outcomes of Cantonese-speaking deaf or hard-of-hearing children who attend primary schools within the Hong Kong educational system and considered whether the system currently meets the needs of these children. The Hong Kong Cantonese Oral Language Assessment Scale, which comprises six subtests, was used to assess 98 children with mild to profound hearing loss. A regression analysis was used to examine the influences of various variables on oral language performance in these children. Notably, 41% of the participants had achieved age-appropriate oral language skills, while 18% and 41% exhibited mild-to-moderate or severe oral language impairment, respectively. The degree of hearing loss and the use of speech therapy were identified as significant negative predictors of oral language performance. The issues of a relatively late diagnosis and device fitting, as well as the very poor oral language outcomes, strongly emphasize the need for policy makers to reconsider the existing educational approaches and support for deaf or hard-of-hearing children.
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Erbaugh, Mary S. "Southern Chinese dialects as a medium for reconciliation within Greater China." Language in Society 24, no. 1 (March 1995): 79–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500018418.
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ABSTRACTSouthern Chinese dialects – Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Hakka – have received little official support from the governments of the nations where Chinese is spoken; they are not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, and are often deeply stigmatized. Although China's language wars have paralleled cold war hostilities, unofficial forces in the 1990s are rapidly enhancing dialect prestige, as an economic boom increasingly links the “Greater China” of the People's Republic, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. (Chinese dialects, Mandarin, Cantonese, Min, Hakka, bilingualism, Hong Kong, Taiwan, official language)
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Wang, William S.-Y. "Martha C. Pennington (ed.), Language in Hong Kong at century's end. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998. Pp. xv, 449. US $33.40." Language in Society 30, no. 1 (January 2001): 123–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404501291052.
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Hong Kong has received much world attention in recent years. After a century and half of colonial occupation, it was returned to China in 1997. Before British rule, it was an unremarkable seaside outpost of Guangzhou (Canton), the premier city in South China. Thus, the speech of its overwhelming majority is called “Cantonese” in English. In fact, Hong Kong and Guangzhou share essentially the same speech, the primary differences being lexical choices.
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Snow, Don. "Cantonese as written standard?" Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 18, no. 2 (July 31, 2008): 190–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/japc.18.2.05sno.
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“Standard language” status is a relative construct defined by a variety of attributes rather than by any single criteria. This paper uses the taxonomy of standard language attributes presented in Downes 1998 as a framework for examining the degree to which written Cantonese, particularly in Hong Kong, has developed attributes of a standard language. In particular, it is argued that written Cantonese has gained a degree of autonomy from Standard Written Chinese, that the Cantonese speech community has clear usage norms regarding how spoken Cantonese words should be represented in writing, that written Cantonese is functionally elaborated in the sense that users have little difficulty with lack of vocabulary for technical or academic concepts, that written Cantonese plays a growing social role in Hong Kong, and that its level of prestige is increasing. The paper concludes that while written Cantonese does not have all the attributes associated with standard languages, it has developed a significant number of these attributes to a significant degree, and that the growing role of written Cantonese is an important indicator of the degree to which Cantonese is taking on a regional standard role in China.
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Lam, Scholastica Wai Sze. "Acquisition of Chinese relative clauses by deaf children in Hong Kong." Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學 18, no. 1 (January 12, 2017): 72–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lali.18.1.03lam.
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This paper is a study of how deaf children in Hong Kong acquire Chinese relative clauses. The relative clause is reported to be a difficult structure for deaf children (Friedmann & Szterman 2006). While it may be true for postnominal relative clauses, it is unclear whether prenominal relative clauses are equally difficult for deaf children. This paper explores this question by examining deaf children’s comprehension and production of Chinese relative clauses via an elicited production task, a picture selection task and a dots-connecting task, which are all presented in written format. In addition to deaf children, typically developing Cantonese children and Cantonese adults with high Chinese proficiency are also recruited for comparison. The results show that deaf children fall behind typically developing Cantonese children in production. But deaf children with higher Chinese proficiency can perform similarly with typically developing Cantonese children. The error types and the types of non-RC responses produced by deaf children are also present in the data of typically developing Cantonese children, suggesting that deaf children do not undergo a different pathway in the development of relative clauses. While typically developing Cantonese children demonstrate non-significant subject advantage in production but object advantage in comprehension, deaf children do not demonstrate subject-object asymmetry in production and object advantage in comprehension.
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Liu, Xiaokai. "A Comparative Study of Language Attitudes in Hong Kong: Towards English, Cantonese and Putonghua." International Journal of English Linguistics 8, no. 3 (February 10, 2018): 195. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v8n3p195.
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20 years have elapsed since Hong Kong has returned to China and the connections with Mainland China are growing in different domains. Especially, the universities in Hong Kong attracted a large number of Mainland students and the number is increasing. Therefore, it is interesting to examine the language attitudes towards English (the former British colonial language), Cantonese (the local dialect) and Putonghua (the third official language) from the perspective of local students and Mainland students. The study reported in this thesis is a quantitative investigation of 30 local students and 30 Mainland students from different disciplines at City University of Hong Kong. Their attitudes towards three languages were compared in terms of integrative orientation and instrumental orientation. The results revealed the local students hold a more integrative attitude and showed their strong loyalty to Cantonese while Mainland students showed integrative attitude and favored the use of more Putonghua in different language contexts. English was still regarded as a prestigious language from both the integrative and instrumental perspective by the local students and the Mainland students. Besides, interactional language preference between the Mainland students and the Local students was also investigated and the result showed English was the most preferable language. The findings of this study suggest Cantonese remains as a strong dialect; English still will be the linguistic capital and the pragmatic function Putonghua is developing well in Hong Kong. Results also indicate subtle transition towards Trilingualism among the university students in Hong Kong.
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Li, David C. S. "The Functions and Status of English in Hong Kong." English World-Wide 20, no. 1 (November 5, 1999): 67–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/eww.20.1.03li.
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This paper is an update of Luke and Richards' (1982) study on the functions and status of English in Hong Kong. The sociolinguistic matrix is described by outlining the distribution of the main functions of the two written languages standard written Chinese (SWC) and English, and the three spoken languages Cantonese, English and Putonghua, in four key domains: government, media, employment and education. Cantonese and English remain the most important spoken languages. The macro-sociolinguistic analysis "diglossia without bilingual-ism" has given way to polyglossia with increasing bilingualism. There are two written H varieties, SWC and English, the former is penetrating into some domains formerly dominated by the latter. Cantonese, typically interspersed with some English, is assigned L functions in both spoken and written mediums. There is some indication that Putonghua is getting increasingly important in post-colonial Hong Kong, but there are as yet no significant social functions assigned to it. Compared with the early 1980s, significant changes have taken place at all levels. Language-related changes are discussed in light of a critical review of recent local research in a number of areas: medium of instruction, language right, linguistic imperialism, Hong Kong accent, Hong Kong identity and language attitudes toward Chinese and English. In view of the tremendous social prestige and symbolic predominance of English, it is argued that "value-added" is a more suitable epithet than "auxiliary" to characterize the status of English in post-1997 Hong Kong.
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Leung, Man-Tak, and Sam-Po Law. "HKCAC: The Hong Kong Cantonese Adult Language Corpus." International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 6, no. 2 (December 31, 2001): 305–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.6.2.06leu.
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An adult language corpus of spoken Hong Kong Cantonese (HKCAC) has recently been developed consisting of spontaneous speech recorded from phone-in programs and forums on the radio in Hong Kong. The database represents the speech of a total of sixty-nine speakers in addition to the program hosts, and has approximately 170,000 characters. It is believed that HKCAC will be of great value to linguists who are interested in studying Cantonese, and speech therapists and educators who work with the Cantonese speaking population. A search engine with a user-friendly interface has also been developed by using FileMaker Pro 4.0 (Chinese version). Apart from the basic frequency information and the display of search results in KWAL (Key Word And Line) format, the search engine also allows users to search for various phonetic realizations of a particular character or the set of characters associated with a particular syllable. The content and structure of the corpus, and the overall architecture as well as the technical aspects of the search engine are described. Search procedures are illustrated with examples. The paper ends with a discussion of the future development of HKCAC.
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Chen, Chapman. "On the Hong Kong Chinese Subtitling of English Swearwords." Meta 49, no. 1 (September 13, 2004): 135–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/009029ar.
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Abstract The objectives of this article are to illustrate how American English swearwords are under-translated in Hong Kong; to explain why English swearwords are inadequately translated in Hong Kong in terms of patronage, illocutionary strategies, and socio-linguistics; to advocate the adoption of Cantonese dynamic equivalents in subtitling English-speaking movies, in particular, American swearwords; to suggest Cantonese dynamic equivalents for American swearwords in Chinese subtitling; and to emphasize the need to pay attention to linguistic, psychosexual, and religious differences between Chinese and Western cultures when subtitling American swearwords.
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Lee, Siu-lun. "Pedagogical Foci of Teaching Cantonese as a Second Language." International Journal of Curriculum Development and Learning Measurement 1, no. 1 (January 2020): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijcdlm.2020010101.
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When the West met East at the Pearl River delta during the 19th century, learning Cantonese as a second language was rooted in the area. Nowadays, there always exists a need by expatriates who are living and working in Hong Kong for learning the local language. The field was developed and influenced by theories in TESOL and foreign language education. It is also inspired by ideas and concepts of teaching Chinese as a second language since the learning of Mandarin Chinese has rapidly spread out in recent decades. Teaching Cantonese as a second language has developed with its own characteristics. This article reviews the development of teaching Cantonese as a second language in terms of pedagogical framework and teaching approaches. The article presents different pedagogical foci in the field of teaching Cantonese as a second language and discusses the academic debates whether to focus on linguistic competence or on pragmatic language use when teaching Cantonese as a second language in Hong Kong.
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Hun-tak Lee, Thomas. "CANCORP - The Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus." Revue française de linguistique appliquée IV, no. 1 (1999): 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/rfla.041.0021.
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Lee, Hun-tak Thomas, and Colleen Wong. "Cancorp: The Hong Kong Cantonese child language corpus." Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale 27, no. 2 (1998): 211–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/clao.1998.1535.
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Nagy, Naomi, and Samuel Lo. "Classifier use in Heritage and Hong Kong Cantonese." Regional Chinese in Contact 5, no. 1 (June 13, 2019): 84–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/aplv.17001.nag.
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Abstract Heritage language speakers have frequently been reported to have language skills weaker than homeland (monolingual) speakers. For example, Wei and Lee (2001, p. 359), a study of British-born Chinese-English bilingual children’s morphosyntactic patterns (including classifier use), report “evidence of delayed and stagnated L1 development.” However, many studies compare heritage speaker performance to a prescriptive standard rather than to spontaneous speech from homeland speakers. We compare spontaneous speech data from two generations of Heritage Cantonese speakers in Toronto, Canada, and from Homeland Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Both groups are similar in a strong preference for general and mass classifiers, and classifier choice being primarily governed by the noun’s number. We observe specialization of go3 個 to singular nouns, a grammaticalization process increasing with each generation. The similarity between homeland and heritage patterns replicates previous studies utilizing the same corpus.
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Lee, Kai Yung Karen. "Non-Centricity and Apathy: An Introduction to Hong Kong Literature." Interlitteraria 25, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 367–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/il.2020.25.2.9.
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Hong Kong literature, with particular historical and social factors, can be regarded as a non-centric literary form. While the majority of Hong Kong people speaks Cantonese as their mother tongue, they are required to write in Mandarin. Additionally, Hong Kong literature struggles to attract attention from an apathetic audience, to produce local writers, and to resonate with foreign readers. As serious literature continues to lose its purchase, more and more writers attempt to break out from this predicament and inject new blood into this fading industry. Efforts include circumventing traditional constraints and incorporating more colloquial Cantonese into various publications, as well as a mushrooming of internet novels. Unfortunately, Chinese education remains rigid and inflexible, hindering students’ ability to use writing as a creative outlet. Literature is also heavily commodified. In light of this, I suggest that reading be encouraged and literature be de-commodified. Hong Kong literature, with its distinctive features and strengths, have the potential to thrive. All it needs is sufficient support from the government, the private sector and the general public.
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Feng, Yang, and Xiya Wang. "Research on the Reform Countermeasures and Implementation Path of Primary and Secondary School Language Education in Hong Kong SAR, China." Journal of Studies in Education 12, no. 3 (June 5, 2022): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jse.v12i3.19883.
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According to a questionnaire and interview survey of 689 students, teachers, and parents from six primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, China, both public and government-funded schools use traditional Chinese teaching materials and Cantonese as the medium of instruction, while private schools use original English textbooks and English as the medium of instruction. All schools' self-selected teaching materials and teachers have a major colonial education legacy, in that they do not objectively introduce the growth process of Chinese culture and socialism, affecting students' ability to acquire a correct world outlook and ideal. In everyday life, students primarily speak Cantonese, and their Putonghua proficiency is poor. In Hong Kong, the competition for college entrance exams and jobs is fierce, and nearly half of students see no hope and expect to migrate to the mainland for university and employment in order to advance. This study proposed specific reform strategies and implementation methods for language teaching in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools to increase patriotism, university enrolment, and employment rates among Hong Kong students.
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Cheng, Qijin, King-wa Fu, Eric Caine, and Paul S. F. Yip. "Why Do We Report Suicides and How Can We Facilitate Suicide Prevention Efforts?" Crisis 35, no. 2 (March 1, 2014): 74–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000241.
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Background: The Hong Kong news media report suicide-related events more frequently and sensationally than Western countries. Little is known about Hong Kong media professionals’ experiences and thoughts about such reporting. Aims: To understand Hong Kong media professionals’ experiences and perceptions of suicide reporting and whether the news media can be better engaged into suicide prevention. Method: We conducted three focus groups of journalists from both the Cantonese and English language news media. Data were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Results: We discerned three rationales from participants regarding their intense coverage of suicide-related events: (1) satisfying commercial competitiveness, (2) addressing social problems, and (3) responding to readers’ interests. The first rationale was a dominant and vigorous motivating factor, and often influenced suicide reporting among local Cantonese media. Media professionals recommended engagement strategies targeted at frontline journalists, media managers, and general media consumers. Conclusion: We see potential to involve news media professionals in Hong Kong as working partners in suicide prevention. To succeed, this effort requires engagement in a proactive, consistent, and sustained fashion.
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Lee, Kai Yung Karen. "Non-Centricity and Apathy: An Introduction to Hong Kong Literature." Interlitteraria 25, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 367–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/il.2020.25.2.9.
Full textAbstract:
Hong Kong literature, with particular historical and social factors, can be regarded as a non-centric literary form. While the majority of Hong Kong people speaks Cantonese as their mother tongue, they are required to write in Mandarin. Additionally, Hong Kong literature struggles to attract attention from an apathetic audience, to produce local writers, and to resonate with foreign readers. As serious literature continues to lose its purchase, more and more writers attempt to break out from this predicament and inject new blood into this fading industry. Efforts include circumventing traditional constraints and incorporating more colloquial Cantonese into various publications, as well as a mushrooming of internet novels. Unfortunately, Chinese education remains rigid and inflexible, hindering students’ ability to use writing as a creative outlet. Literature is also heavily commodified. In light of this, I suggest that reading be encouraged and literature be de-commodified. Hong Kong literature, with its distinctive features and strengths, have the potential to thrive. All it needs is sufficient support from the government, the private sector and the general public.
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Li, Yulong, and Daibo Xiao. "MANDARIN DISCRIMINATION IN HONG KONG: FOUR MAINLAND CHINESE SOJOURN TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCE OF SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE." Journal of Education Culture and Society 11, no. 2 (September 11, 2020): 499–520. http://dx.doi.org/10.15503/jecs2020.2.499.520.
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Thesis. After the handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China in 1997, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government stipulated a trilingual (English, Cantonese, and Mandarin) and biliterate (English and Chinese) policy, in order to include Mandarin as an additional co-official language together with the original English and Cantonese. Until the handover, the use of Mandarin was restricted in British colonial Hong Kong. Since the handover, however, Mandarin and its users have experienced some resistance by local Hong Kong people.
Method. In an attempt to better understand this resistance and its implications, this study adopts Pierre Bourdieu’s field, habitus, and capital theory, to analyse the anti-Mandarin discourse that has prevailed in the ensuing two decades. Via narrative inquiry, this study explains the habitus of four Mandarin speaking teachers, while especially noting their clashes with the anti-Mandarin discourse, and the symbolic violence they suffered in the field.
Conclusion. The study concludes with a reflection on the clash between the teachers’ struggles with the discourse from a postcolonial perspective, and it also considers the legal issues involved in protecting mainland Chinese as a minority in Hong Kong.