Deteriorating standard? A brief look into the English standard in Hong Kong

Leung, Alex (2015) Deteriorating standard? A brief look into the English standard in Hong Kong. Asian Englishes, 17 (3). pp. 209-221. ISSN 1348-8678

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2015.1069964

Abstract

There is a widely held belief that Hong Kong as a community is suffering from an ongoing decline in its standard of English. A very cursory search in the Internet directs readers to many articles lamenting the purportedly poor English standard of Hong Kong people. Appeals for Hong Kongers to improve their English are easy to find. These often originate out of concerns over the unwelcoming possibility of losing out to their close economic competitors such as Singaporeans and their compatriots from China, owing to the importance of English in international trade and communication. However, through reviewing publicly available data, this article reveals that the critique directed at Hong Kong people’s English standard does not always hold up against scrutiny. This article aims to demythologise the issue and points readers’ attention to the possibility of the emergence of a new standard which helps perform important sociolinguistic functions in Hong Kong society.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Hong Kong English, English proficiency, deteriorating standard, prescriptivism, sociolinguistic variation, sociolinguistic function, bilingual identity
Subjects: Q100 Linguistics
Department: Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Humanities
Depositing User: Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited: 26 Nov 2015 12:53
Last Modified: 01 Aug 2021 06:34
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/24762

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