doi: 10.18178/IJLLL.2019.5.2.205
Char Siu is Better Than Guanxi? Identity in Hong Kong English
Chenzi Xu
- Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford, Walton Street, Oxford, OX1 2HG, UK.
Abstract
Indigenized English varieties in Asia such asSinglish and Hong Kong English have attracted considerableattention amongst both scholars and the local public. UnlikeSinglish which is widely accepted by Singaporeans, the localattitude towards Hong Kong English is more complicated. Thispaper explores the ideologies of Hong Kong English through adiscussion of empirical surveys, and a case study about the wordguanxi engaging analysis of media reports, complaint letters,and corpus data. Recent negative responses to the inclusion ofguanxi as a Hong Kong English word in the Oxford EnglishDictionary suggest that the distinctiveness from the mainland ishighlighted in Hong Kong identity, which Hongkongers want tobe reflected in Hong Kong English. This paper shows that theperception of Hong Kong English reflects and is influenced bythe construction of local identity, oriented to instrumental,cultural, and social aspects, which is fluid and dynamic giventhe changing social and political environment.
Keywords
- Hong Kong English
- Guanxi
- identity
How to Cite
Chenzi Xu, "Char Siu is Better Than Guanxi? Identity in Hong Kong English," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 62-70, 2019. https://doi.org/10.18178/IJLLL.2019.5.2.205
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2019 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).